


Familial Relations

by AChairWithAPandaOnIt



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, M/M, Minor Character Death, Psychological Horror, Shinichi and Conan are different people, Shinichi can't catch a damn break, Slow Burn, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, What Did You Expect, background Ran/Sonoko, don't let the summary fool you, he spends so much of this fic in hospital, i kind of accidentally got Ran and Sonoko together so, kaito and shinichi won't get together for at least ten chapters, probably longer, this is actually very sad, this is detective conan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-13 04:11:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 32,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16010033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AChairWithAPandaOnIt/pseuds/AChairWithAPandaOnIt
Summary: '“I can’t believe I used to look up to you, what kind of dumbass doesn’t know who Kaitou KID is?”Shinichi gapes at the swear word that makes its way past Conan’s lips. He considers berating him for it but decides to let it slide; his parents had died a few hours ago after all. He follows Conan’s lead and tilts his head back to stare at the man in the sky.'When Shinichi's aunt and uncle die in a car crash he finds himself looking after his cousin, Conan.A/N: This is on hiatus atm, I probably won't finish it but I might end up rewriting it eventually





	1. Chapter 1

It happens like this.

Mr and Mrs Edogawa take their son on vacation to Japan. They go out shopping, leaving little Edogawa Conan behind in the hotel room.

_Just shopping_

_They say_

_We’ll only be gone a minute_

They’re lying, they don’t go shopping.

They don’t come back.

He waits and waits and waits, and the minute ended hours ago, and they don’t come back. They never come back. Instead there’s a knock at the door and men with police badges and

And the car came out of nowhere, they say. It was such a tragic accident, they say. We’re sorry for your loss, they say.

Conan knows better, though. Conan knows that it wasn’t an accident, knows that his parents hadn’t left the hotel to go shopping. He remembers a woman with long blonde hair and knows that they didn’t leave America for a vacation. They don’t know ( _it’s ‘knew’ now though, because they’re dead. They’re dead and they won’t ever open their eyes again_ ) that he knows, but he knows and that’s all there is to it.

_His parents really ~~aren’t~~ weren’t as good at lying as they thought they were_

_All those whispered conversations_

_Top secret files locked away in wooden drawers_

_All he had needed was a paper clip_

Edogawa Conan is carted off to the police station. Everything he sees is cold and unfamiliar, everything except

_His cousin_

“Come on, I bet you’re hungry.” Kudou Shinichi says.

Conan nods.

* * *

He’s sitting in a Danny’s at 2AM on a Wednesday and, to be honest, he’s feeling kind of lost. He’d never known his aunt and uncle very well, but something about their deaths is unsettling. Conan has an empty look in his eyes as he stares down at his food.

Shinichi has no idea how he’s supposed to deal with that.

_“Their surname was weird as well, the same as that famous writer.” Yumi-san says from across the room. Sato-keiji makes an agreeing sound, eyes unmoving from her report_

_Shinichi pauses, coat only buttoned up half-way_

_He smiles_

_“Just like my relatives, then. They share the same name as a famous writer. Come to think of it, they should be in Japan right now.”_

_Yumi-san raises an eyebrow in annoyance “What? Kudou? Everyone knows your father’s a famous writer Kudou-kun.”_

_“No, Edogawa.” Shinichi chuckles “Like Edogawa Ranpo.”_

_Yumi-san looks stricken_

Conan picks at his food half-heartedly, he hasn’t eaten a single bite. Shinichi frowns in concern.

He reaches over and places his hand on the boy’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he says softly “at least try and eat something. You’ll regret it in the morning if you don’t.”

There’s a scowl on Conan’s face.

“You haven’t eaten anything either.” He grumbles. None the less he takes a single chip from the plate, a disgusted look on his face, and eats it.

“Ah, well, that’s different.” Shinichi says sheepishly, rubbing at the back of his neck. He holds under Conan’s glare for an entire minute before he succumbs to the child’s will and guiltily raises the burger to his mouth.

One bite turns into two, and then three, and then four. And eventually, after a lot of glaring and snide comments, the both of them have emptied their plates.

Shinichi looks over at Conan. He’s staring into the dark expanse outside the window, chin propped up with his hand. He has a guarded look on his face, like he doesn’t want anyone to see how much he’s hurting. But, in that hurt, there is acceptance. He’s not very moved by his parents’ deaths.

It’s as if he’s been expecting them to die.

_And wow_

_Isn’t that suspicious_

But now isn’t the time to dwell on suspicions; it wouldn’t be fair on Conan to do so.

So Shinichi doesn’t mention his suspicions.

He keeps quiet.

A police car goes by, red light spilling across the blackness of the night. Even from inside the restaurant he can hear the high-pitched siren it’s making.

It doesn’t surprise him, it’s not the first one to go past in the hour that they’ve been there. It’s not even the second one, or the third, or the fourth. It’s the fifth one.

If Shinichi weren’t so tired he probably would have rung Megure-keibu up by now.

“Come on then,” he sighs “we should probably be getting home.”

_It’s not really home though_

_Not for Conan, not even for himself_

_It hasn’t been home since his mother took him aside one day and told him that she and his father were going to travel the world_

_…_

_And that, since he didn’t want to come, he would be staying at home, all by himself_

_“Doesn’t that sound fun Shin-chan! You get the house all to yourself! Just don’t do anything irresponsible, okay?”_

_‘What, like you are?’_

_He thought it back then, still thinks it. He doesn’t say it though_

It’s as they’re sitting on a bench outside the building waiting for the taxi to arrive that he spots a speck of white in the sky. It appears to be a person using a hang glider. Shinichi blinks then rubs at his eyes, thinking that he’s just imagining the person.

But, no, they’re still there, gliding across Tokyo.

He frowns.

“Kaitou KID.”

“Huh?” Shinichi looks down at Conan. The boy rolls his eyes at him and gestures over to the figure.

“The one with the hang glider, he’s Kaitou KID.”

“Kaitou KID?” Shinichi narrows his eyes at the white speck, bringing his hand to his chin “Is he some kind of entertainer? Like a magician? It looks like he’s wearing a top hat.”

He tilts his head to the side.

“Is he even allowed to be hang gliding over Tokyo? Does he have a permit? Can you get a permit for that kind of thing?"

And then

“Is that why there are so many police cars around? Because this man is flying about without a permit?”

Conan looks at him like he’s an idiot. He huffs and falls back against the bench, head tilted up to the sky.

“I can’t believe I used to look up to you, what kind of dumbass doesn’t know who Kaitou KID is?”

Shinichi gapes at the swear word that makes its way past Conan’s lips. He considers berating him for it but decides to let it slide; his parents had died a few hours ago after all. He follows Conan’s lead and tilts his head back to stare at the man in the sky.

They don’t say a word until the taxi arrives, content to sit in silence and observe the possible criminal.

_Possible criminal?_

_No_

_The man was a definite criminal_

_Probably a thief if his name was anything to go by_

_Or maybe just a very flamboyant magician with a habit of gliding across Tokyo’s skies without a permit_

* * *

He takes some time off school, needing it to get Conan settled into the Kudo Mansion with him.

It doesn’t take long for Shinichi to realise just how hard it is to look after a child, especially when the child is Conan.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone!” Conan shouts from the other side of the door, voice thick with anger.

“Conaaann.” Shinichi whines, pleads, hands pressed up against the wood “Please, just, think about it. I know you would love nothing more than to stay at home and mope around all day, but it isn’t _healthy_.”

There are a few seconds of silence and then a heavy thump on the door, as if something was thrown at it.

“Those are very bold words for someone who has never even heard of Kaitou KID!”

“What! How does that even relate?!”

There’s no answer and, _really_ , this child is trying his patience. Shinichi huffs, eyebrows knitting together in annoyance. He reigns it in, breathes in heavily, and knocks on the door as calmly as he can manage.

“Hey,” he sighs “you still there?”

And again, there’s no answer.

Shinichi slides down to the floor so that he can sit against the door, arms folded around his legs. There’s a rustling sound from behind him and a resounding thump; he assumes that Conan’s done the same as him. After a minute of silence Shinichi comes to accept that Conan isn’t going to be talking for a while.

He listens to the shallow breathing on the other side of the door and thinks.

He thinks of how much he wishes that he wasn’t the one dealing with this. Of how he _knows_ that he shouldn’t be the one dealing with this.

But Megure-keibu had insisted, he’s Kudou Shinichi after all.

He’s brilliant, he’s amazing.

He can deduce the culprit to a murder quicker than any adult, can recite the script of every Sherlock Holmes book without a copy in front of him, can, can…he can

_He can’t do everything though_

_He’s only 16_

_Just 16, and he’s trying his best_

_But sometimes his best just isn’t good enough, sometimes he finds himself looking at a crime scene without a clue where to start_

_And it scares him_

_It terrifies him_

_He thinks that one day someone will look at him and realise just how much of a mess he is_

_That they’ll stare past the obnoxious, brave front he puts up and see that he spends his nights tossing and turning, too scared to close his eyes_

_Because whenever he does he sees his parents running off to travel the world, uncaring as they leave him alone in the cold, empty house_

_He sees the blood, the death_

_All those scattered body parts from that horrific case half a year ago_

_Conan deserves someone who’s better put together than him_

“It doesn’t.”

Shinichi blinks, startled by the sound of Conan’s voice.

“Huh?” he croaks out, throat sore and eyes stinging.

Conan breathes out heavily, it seems as if the silence has been just as bad for him as it has for Shinichi.

“It doesn’t relate, what I said about KID.” His voice is wobbly, threatening tears “I dunno. I was just…stuck on that…I guess. I was angry and I needed something to use against you. Sorry, I shouldn’t have…what I said…it was said with the intention of hurting you.”

And it’s such a childish thing, to use this white-clad man who flies through the skies of Tokyo as an insult. It’s such a stark reminder that, no matter how mature Conan is, he’s still a child.

Shinichi chokes out a laugh.

“I’m sure there’s much better ammo than that, I’m not exactly doing a great job at all this.”

“That never really occurred to me, mum and dad were worse at things like this. I know they loved me…but…”

“They never really tried hard enough.” Shinichi realises.

He can feel Conan’s surprise even if he can’t see it. He hopes he isn’t overstepping the boundaries.

“My parents were, _are_ , the same. They’re always happy, and I know they love me. But sometimes knowing isn’t really enough,” Shinichi bumps his head back against the door and isn’t really surprised to feel tears on his face “they left me after all…”

Shinichi takes a few seconds to catch his breath.

“Sometimes, and this is really dumb, but sometimes it feels like they just grew bored of me, that they gave up on me.”

“Hey Conan, I’ll never give up on you. Okay?”

There’s a shuddering breath, and then the door is wrenched open. Shinichi scrambles out of the way and finds himself with his lap full of Conan. He can see that the boy is just a wrecked as he is, his face stained with tears, fingers shaking from their grip on Shinichi’s sweater, trying his best to form words but only managing broken sobs.

The message is clear enough: he misses his parents.

“It’s okay.” Shinichi tries to say, but it just gets stuck in his throat and comes out as a gasping, wailing sound.

_Shinichi’s a mess but that’s okay_

_Conan’s too proud to open himself up to someone who can’t reciprocate_

_So maybe a mess is what’s best for Conan_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conan eats breakfast with an old guy, Shinichi gets introduced to Kaitou KID's twitter account, and they're both almost murdered by ducks. Not necessarily in that order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha, don't expect another chapter tomorrow just cause I posted one the day after I uploaded this, I'm really erratic with uploading stuff.

_Shinichi’s running. Every tree he passes looks the same, there’s nothing to mark his location, nothing to tell him whether or not he’s just been running in circles._

_“Why am I running?” he asks himself._

_It’s a good question_

_Why is he running?_

_Shinichi stops_

_and then he falls_

_The ground is slippery and it squelches under his hand as he drags himself up. The trees are gone now, there’s only red._

_There’s only red._

_It’s all red._

_Red_

_Red_

_Red_

_Red_

_“I’ll be fine from here.” The girl says._

_Watanabe Ichika_

_Her name was Watanabe Ichika_

_But she’s only an arm, fingers long and slender. Her head lies a few feet away, under an umbrella, mouth open in a silent scream._

_Shinichi stumbles back, breathing heavily, eyes wide. He’s shaking._

_This isn’t right, his mind screams, this can’t be right_

_There’s a hand on his shoulder._

_“Kudou-kun? Are you okay?” Sato-keiji asks, voice laced with concern._

_“Y-yes, I’m―”_

_The words die in his throat, it’s not Sato-keiji. He can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t hide._

_He can only watch as the man (plain-looking, boring, a business man, someone no one would suspect) smiles at him, eyes filled with cruelty. He brings his hand up and Shinichi wishes he could flinch away but he just can’t seem to move. The man doesn’t touch him, though. Instead he points to something behind Shinichi._

_Shinichi’s scared, he doesn’t want to turn. He turns._

_It’s Conan._

_But he’s only an arm, with short childish fingers._

_Shinichi opens his mouth in a silent scream._

And then he sits up, gasping, hands grappling at his bed sheets. He hides his face in his knees, buries his hands in his hair, draws out a shuddering breath. The alarm clock at the side of the bed reads 04:27.

It’s just a dream, he tries to tell himself, It’s only a dream.

_Except it’s so much more than that_

_Because Watanabe-san really did die that day_

_Cut to pieces for the amusement of one man_

He’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine, he’s fine.

And he is, he really is. He’s fine. And as long as people don’t see the haunted look in his eyes he will stay fine.

It was just another case, the same as all the others.

_Except it wasn’t just another case_

_The victims hadn’t done anything to the suspect_

_Hadn’t hurt a loved one, hadn’t been rude to him, hadn’t even met him before the light left their eyes_

_“I was bored.” the man had said_

_It was the most horrifying thing that Shinichi had ever heard_

He calms down, takes a shower, and puts on a smile. They’re having breakfast with Agasa-hakase later so he needs to look presentable.

* * *

“I don’t get it.” Conan grumbles as he toes his shoes off “Why do we have to eat at this old guy’s house? This is bullshit.”

“No swearing. And sometimes I eat breakfast with Agasa-hakase. I’m not giving that up just because you don’t like people.” Shinichi says, scowling.

“You don’t like people either.”

“Yeah, well I like Agasa-hakase, so you better be nice to him.”

Shinichi wonders off to the kitchen and sits at the counter before Conan can complain at him further. Conan huffs, shoves his feet into the slippers by the door, and stomps after him. He opens his mouth, ready to scream insults at Shinichi. Then he stops, remembers the conversation they’d had the other day, and he closes his mouth. He’s just being childish, he realises.

“I suppose it can’t hurt.” He says, pulling himself up onto the chair next to Shinichi. Shinichi smiles.

“That’s the spirit Conan-kun!” Agasa-hakase says happily, coming over with a tray in his hands. There’s a bowl of rice for each of them on it, and green tea. It looks a lot better than anything Shinichi’s ever cooked.

Conan says as much.

Shinichi glares at him.

Agasa-hakase _beams_.

“Why thank you,” he says “you’re much nicer than Shinichi.”

He sets a bowl and a pair of chopsticks down in front of Conan and then does the same for Shinichi.

“hmm, I don’t know,” Conan says absentmindedly, snapping the chopsticks apart “Shinichi-niichan’s very nice.”

Agasa-hakase crouches down so that he’s level with Conan and leans in conspiratorially.

“You can’t tell anyone though, Shinichi will be very embarrassed if you do.” He whispers loudly, so that Shinichi can hear.

“I’m gonna tell everyone!” Conan chirps and Shinichi’s face goes bright red.

He turns away with an annoyed sigh and crosses him arms. Agasa-hakase chuckles at him and finishes unloading the tray. He takes the seat on the other side of Conan.

“Itadakimasu.” He says, Shinichi and Conan follow his example.

Maybe it isn’t so bad, Shinichi thinks, as Conan and Agasa-hakase resume their teasing. Conan _is_ smiling widely after all, and that’s all that matters. He really wishes it wasn’t at his expense though.

* * *

“What happened to not wanting to eat at the old man’s house?” Shinichi asks as they exchange their slippers for shoes at the door.

“I changed my mind,” Conan says, smile still tugging at his lips “Agase-hakase isn’t like other adults so he’s okay.”

This catches Shinichi’s attention.

“What are other adults like?” He asks, holding the door open.

Conan walks through the door, a frown on his face.

“Other adults…they don’t really care. They say they do, but they don’t. They treat children like they’re stupid, beneath them, and they never listen to a word they say. And if someone is mean to them, or rude to them, they don’t consider their age, their maturity, their situation, into why they would do something like that. Agasa-hakase does. What I said, and the way I acted, when we first walked through the door, it was very rude. But Agasa-hakase wasn’t mean to me because of it, and he didn’t judge me by it. He considered the fact that my parents died last week and decided that I must be lashing out because of it. He’s kind.”

Conan smiles up at him and his eyes are pained.

“You’re kind too.” He says.

Shinichi’s breath catches in his throat, his eyes widen. He’s surprised to say the least.

“Oh.”

“C’mon,” Conan says, grabbing his hand and dragging him forward “you wanted me to go out right? Let’s go on a walk.”

Shinichi huffs out a laugh and follows the boy.

“Where do you want to go?” He asks.

“Hmm, how about a park.”

“All right then!” Shinichi says happily “Let’s stop by the supermarket, we can buy some rice for the ducks.”

“Huh? Rice? Isn’t it meant to be bread?” Conan asks, head cocked to the side, bewilderment written clear on his face.

“Bread’s actually bad for ducks, it’s like junk food for them.”

“You know this but you don’t know who Kaitou KID is?”

* * *

They stop at the supermarket to buy rice and then make their way to the park. It’s a nice day out and Shinichi isn’t surprised to see the number of dog walkers that have congregated to the park. The ducks are fairly evenly spread out along the pond but by the time Conan’s thrown the first handful of rice out every single duck in the pond has crowded over towards them. They squawk and quack and are, quite honestly, very vicious to one another. Conan blinks as two of them waddle out of the water, hand still shoved in the rice bag.

The ducks snap their beaks menacingly.

“Uuuh…Shinichi-niichan?” Conan says cautiously.

“Yeah?” Shinichi asks, a nervous smile on his face.

“Is this…normal…for ducks?”

“Um…I…I…suppose not?” Shinichi says.

The ducks lunge for them but Shinichi is quicker. He grabs Conan by his arm-pits and wrenches him away, the bag falling from his arms. Rice spills everywhere and the ducks attack, pecking at the grass desperately, violently. Shinichi wonders, for a second, what they will do when they’ve eaten all the rice. He doesn’t stick around to find out.

Instead he adjusts his grip on Conan and makes a run for it.

He only stops when he’s run out of breath, too winded to continue. Conan’s laughing hysterically as he’s deposited onto the ground. Shinichi bends over, hands on knees, and breathes in as much air as he can.

“You’re _really_ heavy.” He laughs.

He looks up at the shop they’ve stopped in front of – it’s an ice cream shop.

“Come on.” he says, snatching Conan’s hand up and dragging him inside.

The shop is brightly lit, with blue walls and blue tables dotted around. It’s a little busy but Shinichi doesn’t mind, he waits at the end of the line, making sure to keep a tight grip on Conan’s hand in case he gets swept up in the crowd.

The line thins quickly and, soon enough, they find themselves at the front of the queue.

“What will you have, little boy?” The woman at the counter asks, smiling down at Conan.

“Coffee!” Conan says, grinning up at Shinichi.

He leans up on his tip toes.

“But don’t tell my cousin, okay.” He mock-whispers.

The woman holds a hand up to her mouth to hide her chuckle.

“Hmm, I don’t know. I might have to ask your cousin.” She says.

“Just let him have it.” Shinichi says, trying to look put out. It doesn’t work though, he can feel the smile creeping up his lips.

“What! Seriously?!” Conan shouts. And then he does something very unexpected.

He hugs him.

Shinichi stumbles slightly, face bright red.

“Ah, um. Could that be two coffee ice-creams?” Shinichi asks the woman, smiling nervously. He hesitantly brings a hand up to pat Conan on the head.

Conan makes a humming sound, then releases Shinichi from his grip.

“I’m gonna get a table!” Conan says, running off.

“You’re doing a good job.” The lady at the counter remarks, smiling kindly at him.

“Ah, well, it’s, uh, It’s nothing really.” Shinichi stutters out.

“No, really, you’re doing a good job. That kid, he has a guarded look in his eyes, like he doesn’t trust anyone. My Hiromi was the same. He trusts _you_ though.” She says, smiling sadly.

Shinichi follows her gaze over to Conan, sitting at a table by the window. He’s kicking his legs back and forth, staring out of the window, there’s an overjoyed smile on his face. Shinichi finds that he really loves that smile.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Shinichi says, then after a moment of consideration “Thank you.”

“That’s quite alright. Would you like it in a bowl?” The woman says. Shinichi answers ‘yes’ and pays for the ice cream. He smiles kindly at the woman before walking over to Conan and setting a bowl down in front of him. He slides into the seat opposite him and puts his own bowl down.

“You’re happy today.” He says after a few minutes.

“Of course!” Conan chirps “You almost got mauled by ducks _and_ you let me have coffee ice cream! This is the best day ever!”

There’s something genuinely brilliant about seeing Conan drop his guard to act like an actual child. So much so that Shinichi ignores the comment about the ducks. He shoves his spoon into his mouth and looks outside. This is the first time that they’ve been out since the day Conan’s parents died and Shinichi almost expects to see the man, Kaitou KID, gliding through the air again.

There’s no one flying through the sky.

“Hey,” Shinichi says suddenly, turning to Conan “about Kaitou KID. Why isn’t he out right now?”

Conan blinks, then drops his spoon into the bowl.

The bell to signal people entering the shop rings.

“Wouldn’t you like to know.” Conan smirks, arms crossed over his chest in a way that is probably meant to seem challenging.

It _does_ seem challenging.

“I would actually.” Shinichi says, scowling over at Conan “Just tell me you little―”

“SHINICHI!”

Hands grab the back of his chair tightly and Shinichi looks up to find Ran standing over him. She looks pissed.

Conan glares at Sonoko as she sits down in the seat next to him and plants her elbows on the table, resting her chin on her hands.

“You don’t happen to have any popcorn do you, brat?” She says.

She looks very offended when Conan turns away from her, nose up in the air.

“Where have you been Shinichi!” Ran shouts “Why haven’t you been at school? Just because you’re cleverer than everyone else doesn’t mean that you don’t have to go to school!”

“Ah, no!” Shinichi protests “That not why―”

“And you’ve been ignoring my calls! You’re such a jerk Shinichi!”

“That’s not…hey, wait! How did you find me?”

Ran seems to calm down a little, she releases her grip on Shinichi’s chair and falls down onto the one next to him, crossing her legs moodily. She brings her phone out of her pocket and swipes across the screen before holding it out in front of him.

It’s on twitter, showing a video clip. Below it are the worlds ‘Famous detective Kudou Shinichi and his tiny clone getting wreckt by ducks.’.

“Sonoko said it would be the easiest way to find you, you _are_ pretty famous after all.” Ran says, she’s still glaring at him.

“Someone recorded that!” Shinichi yelps, face burning.

“Yep!” Sonoko cackles “And everyone’s seen it! Even KID-sama commented on it!”

“Ah!” Shinichi says, pointing at her.

“Ah?” Ran asks, anger melting into confusion. He sees Conan burst into laughter across from him.

“KID-sama! Is that Kaitou-KID?” Shinichi asks earnestly.

“Well, yes, who else would it be? Lupin III?” Sonoko says sarcastically, eyebrow raised.

Shinichi settles back into the chair, hand at his chin.

“Interesting,” he says, brow furrowed “so Sonoko knows this ‘Kaitou KID’ as well.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sonoko scowls.

“Ah, it’s just, Conan keeps on bringing him up.”

“Conan? Is that what this child is called?” Ran asks, turning to Conan curiously.

Shinichi nods.

“Yeah, he’s Conan. Edogawa Conan. He’s my cousin. His parents…well…uh, well, I’m looking after him right now.” Shinichi says, stuttering over the last bit. He looks over to Conan with an apologetic look.

Ran blinks, she’s not really sure what to make of that. She reaches across the table and holds her hand out.

“Hello Conan-kun,” She says kindly “I’m Mouri Ran, Shinichi’s friend.”

“Ah, okay.” Conan says, awkwardly bringing his hand up to shake Ran’s. He looks over at Sonoko with caution.

“That’s Sonoko.” Shinichi says “She’s kind of annoying, you can just ignore her if you want.”

“HEY! What did you just say about me!” Sonoko shrieks.

“You two! Please, no fighting.” Ran says, worriedly looking around at the other customers.

“Geez.” Sonoko huffs, settling back down “What did you mean anyway? About KID-sama.”

Shinichi goes to speak but Conan beats him to it.

“Shinichi-niichan doesn’t know who Kaitou KID is.” He chirps, smirking over at Shinichi.

Sonoko lets out a furious gasp.

“What! Seriously?! You don’t know who KID-sama is?!” She says in outrage.

Shinichi shifts uncomfortably, eyes cast down to the table.

“Shinichi, you do know you can just loo―” Ran starts.

“No! Don’t tell him!” Conan yelps from across the table.

“It’s funnier this way.” He shrugs when everyone looks towards him questioningly.

“He’s right.” Sonoko nods seriously.

Ran laughs nervously as Shinichi folds his arms in annoyance.

"He's a thief isn't he? That's why he's _Kaitou_ KID." Shinichi says, he frowns "Wait a minute...if he's a criminal why does he have a twitter account? Couldn't the police find him from that?"

"They've definitely tried. They haven't been able to track him from it though, he's very good with technology. They can't even block him from twitter, it just doesn't work." Sonoko says.

Shinichi thinks on it for a second. Then he grabs Ran's phone, ignoring her cry of 'Shinichi'. He puts in the passcode, her mother's birthday, and scrolls down through the comments on the video before he comes to a stop at a username that says 'KaitouKID'.

"This is him right? Kaitou KID?" Shinichi shows the phone to Sonoko.

"Uuuh, yeah." She says, blinking.

Shinichi reads the comment, it says 'haha omg highlight of my day!! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ #epicfail #detective #detective'sclone?? #whoisthistinychild? #plscometomyheists #probablybetterthantantei-san'.

"What do I do?" Shinichi says, confused "He asked me to come to his heists?"

"Oh right. He did say that in the tags, didn't he." Sonoko says.

"Maybe we should go to one of his heists?" Ran asks, peering at the phone from over his shoulder.

"Maybe." Conan agrees.

"Definitely!" Sonoko declares.

Shinichi taps on the username, which redirects him to the thief's account. There's a selfie on the left-hand side which, if it weren't taken at such an angle with such dark lighting, would be a risky move. Underneath it is 'The Official Kaitou KID Account', then '@KaitouKID', and then '✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*Kaitou KID*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧'. And even further down 'You know? The internationally known jewel thief'. He scrolls through his posts, there's a few back and forth conversations with someone called 'Kuroba1412'. Their conversations are mostly about how annoying Hakuba (who Shinichi assumes is Hakuba Saguru, someone he's been wanting to meet for a while) is.

He comes to a stop at an aerial view of his house and, even more disturbingly, a blurry picture of him closing his bedroom window. Above it KID has written 'I spy with my little eye Kudou Shinichi!! ( ಠ◡ಠ ) Please come to my heists!!!! Tantei-san is so annoying!（ ；´Д｀）#kudoshinichi #plscometomyheists #wasjustpassingby #srryforthedisturbance #imlying #imnotsorry #hahahah'.

"Is he...stalking me?" Shinichi chokes out.

"What!" Ran shouts and grabs her phone back, she looks at the phone angrily.

"I've never had a problem with this thief but if he's stalking my best friend I'll never forgive him!" she rages.

"Urgh," Sonoko grumbles "he's not stalking Shinichi-kun. He just mentioned him in a couple posts cause that British detective's annoying and he wants someone else to chase him around at his heists. Besides, being stalked by KID-sama would be the greatest honour!"

"He's commented on a picture of Shinichi from that game of soccer that he played when Abe-kun was ill with 'wow, he sure looks great in those shorts'. Seriously, Kaitou KID is a huge pervert _and_ he's creeping on Shinichi. Isn't he meant to be in his 40's or something!? Seriously, I'm going to fucking murder this bitch's ass!"

Everyone looks at Ran in surprise. And then

"So _she's_ allowed to swear but _I'm_ not?! This is fucking bullshit Shinichi-niichan and I won't stand for it!"

"Conan!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let's go to tropical land, he said. It'll be fun, he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun story: I actually signed up to twitter to find out how it works so I could write the first bit of this chapter, but then I got locked out for suspicious activity because I kept clicking on the notifications tab to double check things.

“Shinichi-niichan I’m bored.”

Shinichi looks up from his book to find Conan slumped over the arm of the sofa. He frowns, he’d really been getting into this one. Shinichi sighs, marks his place in the book and puts it down on the side table.

“What do you want to do then?”

Conan shrugs, pouting up at him.

Shinichi looks around the room, his gaze singles in on the TV. He gets up, heads to the door and up the stairs, Conan following behind him curiously. He walks down the hallway for a while before stopping in front of a door.

“I think it’s this one.” He says, opening it.

Sure enough, instead of a room it is a small cupboard, filled with DVDs.

“What do you want to watch?” He asks, looking down at Conan. Conan brings his hand up to his chin in a thinking pose, considering the DVDs.

“Do all of these have your mother in them?” He asks suddenly.

“I don’t think all of them do.” Shinichi hums, turning a DVD case over in his hands. He puts it back when he spots his mother’s face on the front.

He’s starting to think that maybe he was wrong, and that all of the DVDs really did feature his mother, when he picks up a case without her face on it. It’s an anime series, and Shinichi’s fairly certain that she’s never voice-acted.

“Urgh,” Conan groans, putting another DVD back in its place “they really _do_ all have Obasan on them!”

“Ah, wrong.” Shinichi grins, holding up the DVD he’d just found.

“Cardcaptor Sakura?” Conan comments, eyebrow raised.

“It’s probably better than anything Kāsan is in.”

Shinichi heads to the kitchen while Conan sets up the TV (Shinichi honestly has no idea how it works, he’s never really touched it, always too busy reading books). He boils the kettle and produces two mugs, heaping teaspoons of hot chocolate into them.

He looks through the window.

It’s murky and dull, obscured by rain. Shinichi feels as if something bad is going to happen soon.

The kettle finishes boiling and he pours water into each mug, stopping a little over half-way. He adds milk to cool them down.

When he returns to the sitting room Conan has managed to get the video working. He deposits the mugs onto the coffee table as Conan presses play.

Bright and cheery music bursts out around the room.

“Give me your phone.” Conan says as the protagonist appears on scene.

Shinichi blinks but passes his phone over.

There’s a muttered ‘no password?’ and then his phone is being shoved in his face. He hears a clicking sound. A photo comes up, Conan had taken a selfie of the two of them.

It’s surprisingly in focus.

Conan takes the phone back quickly, typing something on it.

“Uuuhhh, what are you doing?” Shinichi asks, bewildered.

“Making a twitter account.” Conan replies, not looking up from the phone.

“Why?”

“I wanna see how long it’ll take for Kaitou KID to start bugging you.”

The main character, a girl called Sakura, has just finished introducing her family when Conan shows him the phone again. It’s apparently his new account, the picture on the left-hand side being the selfie Conan had taken earlier. Lower down is ‘Kudou Shinichi’, ‘@KudouShinichi’, and ‘I made an account for my dumb cousin so he better use it’.

“Conan.” Shinichi says, pouting.

He hears the phone’s camera clicking, and then Conan’s tapping at the screen again. Shinichi moves over to angle his head onto Conan’s shoulder and get a better look.

Their first post is on the page. It reads ‘Shinichi-niichan’s not very impressed’ with a picture of Shinichi pouting.

Conan shoves the phone into his hands and turns back to the screen.

Shinichi looks down at it; there’re four buttons across the top – Home, Moments, Notifications, and Messages. He taps on the one that says Notifications and is surprised to see that, already, Conan’s post has been commented on. There aren’t many comments so it’s easy to zero in on it.

Shinichi throws the phone across the room.

“What’d he say?” Conan asks.

“Notice me senpai.” Shinichi croaks out, face bright red.

Conan snorts.

Needless to say, Shinichi deletes the account.

_And he’s never going to forget any of this_

_Conan’s smirk as he mocks something the main character has said_

_His bright smile when he actually starts to enjoy the series_

_Not that he’d ever admit it_

_This is something that he’s never had before, and he’s going to remember it forever_

* * *

It’s as he’s getting ready for bed later that day that Conan knocks on his door.

“Come in.” he says, doing up the last button on his pyjama shirt.

Conan stands in the doorway, looking scared and determined at the same time. He marches into the room and throws himself down to sit on Shinichi’s bed, hands in his lap, head down in a grimace. There’s a dark look in his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Shinichi says, sitting down next to him.

“I…I think you’re ready to know…” Conan looks up then.

And by that he means that he’s ready to tell him about whatever this is. Conan doesn’t like feeling weak, Shinichi knows this, has seen it. And this is further proof; Conan’s been telling himself this entire time that Shinichi is the weak one, that he can’t tell Shinichi because Shinichi is too weak to know. And this isn’t to say that Conan’s weak, Conan is anything but weak. But the truth is that Conan is the weak one in this situation. And he hasn’t been strong enough to tell Shinichi.

Shinichi waits, let’s Conan work up the nerve to speak.

“My parents…they didn’t die by accident.” Conan says, breathing in deeply “There were people, bad people, that they were fighting…and they were killed by those people, I’m sure of it.”

Shinichi swallows, he puts a comforting hand on Conan’s back.

The boy let’s out a shuddering sob at the contact, but he continues, voice thick with sadness.

“Those people, they were part of an organisation, an illegal one...my parents called them the black organisation, I suppose it’s cause they always wear black.

"And they have codenames; there was this woman on a motorcycle, I saw her talking to mum and dad once. They called her Vermouth, we actually followed her over here…and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they died the day we arrived in Japan…”

“Okay.” Shinichi says.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Conan slips out from under his hand and walks out of the room. Shinichi hears his door shut.

He exhales shakily.

He wasn’t expecting this.

There was a motorcycle involved, Yumi-san had said. And Conan said that this woman, this ‘Vermouth’ had a motorcycle. He knows that he’s jumping to conclusions, that Conan’s jumping to conclusions, that it could have been anyone on the motorcycle.

But his instincts are screaming at him that this is right, that this is what must have happened.

His aunt and uncle were murdered.

* * *

Shinichi sighs, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Ran had invited both him and Conan out to the aquarium. Her plan was for her mum and dad to ‘accidentally’ meet up inside the aquarium in the hopes that they’d get back together again. And, of course, she needed to scout the building first. Shinichi wasn’t quite sure why she needed him and Conan there, but it seemed to make her happy so he let it slide.

Now, standing in the staff room after giving his deductions for a murder, he was starting to think this was a bad idea.

At least Conan was happy, their conversation the night before really seemed to have helped him.

“Oh, come on, Kudou-kun.” Megure-keibu says, looking at the collection of phones on the table “There’re over 100 devices here, are we really going to have to check the footage on all of them?”

He looks a little annoyed.

“Most of the pictures only show fish…” he says as Shinichi picks up the victim’s phone.

“I guess that’s expected.” Shinichi says, calling the contacts that hadn’t answered when he’d rung them earlier.

Three of the phones on the table start ringing.

They bring the owners of the phones into the room and solve the mystery. It was a woman called Ojiro Naho, an ex, she'd put her phone in her boyfriend’s hat while it was recording to create an alibi.

And then she’d killed her ex.

Shinichi doesn’t think he’ll ever understand what drives a person to murder. But then he’s never had an ex, and it’s almost always the ex. Maybe he shouldn’t date, just in case.

It’s dark when they exit the aquarium.

“I guess we should give up on this,” Shinichi says to Ran “an aquarium where a murder happened isn’t really the best place for that lovey-dovey strategy of yours.”

He hears Conan snort at his wording, apparently the phrase lovey-dovey isn’t in with the kids.

“Right.” Ran says, smiling.

It starts raining, a drop hitting Shinichi on the cheek.

“Damn, it’s started to rain.” He says in annoyance, rubbing at where the water hit him (which is really quite a useless reaction considering that another raindrop lands in the exact same place a second later).

“Eh? Ah! You’re right! Let’s run then!” Ran says, quickening her pace and raising her hood.

There’s a protest of ‘I can’t run as quickly as you two’ from Conan and

It seems to happen in slow motion, her phone falls from her hood and clatters to the ground, sliding and bouncing through a sewer grate. There’s a resounding plop and then the phone is gone.

“No way!” Ran calls, running over to peer into the grate “Why was my phone in my hood?!”

She turns to him, upset and angry.

Shinichi is terrified.

He steps back a little, putting his hands up in a defensive position, nervous smile on his face.

“A-ah, sorry. While I was thinking about how the culprit captured the video…I…I put it in your hood and forgot.” He stutters out.

“Why did I give it to you?! It was completely new!” She snaps, tears in her eyes.

“Don’t cry!” Shinichi says hurriedly, raising his hand in a placating manner “I’ll buy you a replacement.”

“Why?! Why does nothing good ever happen when I go out somewhere with you?!”

“Ah, R-Ran-nēchan, I’m sure bad things don’t happen every time.” Conan says nervously, safely hidden behind Shinichi's legs “When you and Sonoko-neechan met me nothing bad happened, and Shinichi-niichan was there the whole time.”

“That’s not true, even then something bad happened! We found out that Kaitou KID is stalking Shinichi!”

“Okay, okay, calm down! Geez! How about tropical land! I’ll take you there, and Conan too.” Shinichi huffs, quick to end the conversation now that his possible stalker is being pulled into it. He tries resolutely to push the twitter fiasco out of his head, it doesn’t work.

“Tropical land?” She asks, surprised.

“Yeah, I’ve heard they’ve built a new one in Tokyo. Nothing could go wrong in an amusement park so…” Shinichi smiles.

“Do you want to bet on that?” Conan says, smirking.

“Betting is irresponsible.”

“You’re only saying that cause you know you’ll lose.”

“You little bra―”

Ran bursts into laughter. She stands up, rubbing at her eyes.

“Alright, tropical land. You have to pay for everything though. So how about it? if I win the karate championship we’ll go there.” She says determinedly, hands balled into fists.

Shinichi flinches back.

“O-oi, wait. Last year you got second place, and didn’t the winner retire from the club?” He says in shock.

“That’s a promise!” She says, pointing at him.

And Shinichi’s allowance isn’t that big, but he really did walk himself into this one.

“And if you buy me a new phone attach a Namako Otoko strap, they’re sold at the aquarium!” She says, grabbing Conan’s hand and pulling him along the pavement.

“Yes, yes.” Shinichi says, following them.

“And then…”

“What! Something else?!”

“Hm…maybe I should forgive you after that.”

Conan snickers.

And despite all that, despite the laughter and the happiness, he has a feeling that something bad is going to happen. Soon, any day now, he just knows it.

* * *

They’re at tropical land and he sees one of the suspicious men from the roller coaster disappear into the hedges. Shinichi thinks it’s possible that the two men are from the organisation.

He makes his decision.

“Sorry, Ran, Conan. Go ahead without me.”

“I’ll catch up with you right away!”

Conan grabs his hand before he can get very far, eyes wide and terrified. They say it all, those eyes.

‘Please don’t make me lose someone else to them’.

“Don’t worry,” Shinichi smiles “I’ll be fi―

 

 

 

He isn’t fine.

The man with the long hair gives him a wicked grin and Shinichi knows he’s messed up. He needs to escape the man’s grasp, to move away, before he swallows the poison. But his limbs feel limp, and his eyes weak. He can’t control his body at all. He thinks he has a concussion.

He swallows, the man releases him.

“Farewell, great detective.” He says, and then Shinichi’s alone.

He coughs wetly, the poison already taking effect. It hurts, he thinks, but it isn’t too bad.

But then

He breathes in harshly and

It _burns_.

It burns so badly. He claws at the grass beneath him, eyes wide, mouth gaping open.

Someone’s screaming, a loud, horrid sound. It grates on his ears and he wishes it would stop but it doesn’t. They sound like they’re dying, like they’re being murdered.

And his bones are melting and his body is burning, and it _hurts_.

He wonders, then, if this is how it feels to die, if this is how Watanabe-san felt when the man killed her. He wonders if she saw it coming herself, if she felt like something bad was coming in the days leading up to her death. Shinichi did, he knew something bad was going to happen.

He just didn’t know it was going to be something this bad.

He collapses onto the ground, eyes closing.

He’s dead, he knows this. He accepts it. He’ll never open his eyes again.

_And it’s all pointless and needless_

_And Conan’s going to be distraught_

_Ran’s going to be distraught, everyone’s going to be distraught_

_He feels awful for that_

_But it hurts so much and Shinichi just wants to rest_

_He just wants the pain to stop_

And all his problems melt away, just like that.

The pain stops.

The screaming stops.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shinichi _stops_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just gonna put this here in case anyone thinks otherwise: Shinichi hasn't turned into a child, since this is a different universe (or at least somewhat different) the poison has another effect.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, Miyano-sensei? She's pretty suspicious right?

 

 

 

“―ni―”

 

 

 

 

“―iich―”

 

 

 

 

There’s someone shaking his shoulder.

 

 

 

 

“―Shi―”

 

 

 

 

It’s hard to concentrate over the pounding in his head, but there’s definitely someone shaking his shoulder.

 

 

 

 

“―iichan―”

 

 

 

 

They’re saying something, tone desperate, like they’re afraid.

 

 

 

 

“―an! Shi―”

 

 

 

 

He tries to concentrate, tries his best to listen. It’s hard though. It’s so hard.

 

 

 

 

He's so tired.

* * *

Shinichi wakes up in a bed, bright lights overhead. He blinks slowly.

Everything around him is a stark, pure white and the air has a unique smell, it isn’t very nice. He’s sure he’s smelt it before.

Somewhere.

In a place he doesn’t like visiting.

And then he gets it.

He’s in a hospital.

He sits up and sees a child draped over the side of the bed, sleeping. The child looks familiar, Shinichi’s sure he’s seen him somewhere before. And then

They wake up, head lifting, eyes groggy. The child is a boy, with dark brown hair and a pair of oversized glasses. He looks relieved when he spots Shinichi.

_Conan, Shinichi realises_

_The boy is Conan_

_He’s not quite sure what he’s doing here though_

_Maybe he should ask_

He asks.

“Conan, what are you doing here?”

The boy physically reels back. He looks vaguely insulted.

“What! Why wouldn’t I be here?! Do you think that I don’t care about you enough to visit you or something?! You almost died Shinichi-niichan!” He shouts, and then he crowds into Shinichi’s space and gives him a tight hug.

Now, it’s not that Shinichi doesn’t like hugs – he does, he may never admit it, but he does. It’s just that it’s a little strange coming from Conan of all people.

“Uuh, love you too?” Shinichi says questioningly.

“You don’t seem very sure of that.” Conan remarks dryly, pulling back to sit in the chair next to the bed.

Shinichi huffs, crossing his arms.

“Well it’s not exactly my fault, that kind of came out of nowhere you know. You’ve never really hugged me before.”

Conan splutters.

“’Never really hugged you before’?!” Conan says mockingly “Shinichi-niichan, I don’t know how to tell you this but I _have definitely hugged you before_.”

“Yeah, well maybe you’re having memory problems. You haven’t taken a hard hit to the head lately have you?” Shinichi mimes the action, lightly tapping his fist against his head.

It’s meant to be funny, to lighten the mood, but Conan’s eyes widen and, suddenly, he looks very scared.

“Shinichi-niichan,” He says slowly “you got hit on the head last night, do you remember that? It was a very hard hit, there was…a lot of blood.”

Shinichi pauses, breath hitching in his throat.

He _doesn’t_ remember that.

He looks down at his hands, clenched in the bedsheets.

Conan sees his shakiness, sees how startled he is. He realises that Shinichi can’t remember it. His eyes go teary, his face distraught.

_“You’ve never really hugged me before.” Shinichi had said_

_And that was bullshit_

_Conan had hugged him plenty of time_

_The first time being a few days after his parents had died_

_Which meant that Shinichi had forgotten more than just last night_

 “I need to go.” He chokes out, running from the room.

“Conan! Wai―”

The door slams shut.

Shinichi’s left on his own.

* * *

“And are you experiencing any pain, Kudou-kun?” The doctor asks.

Miyano-sensei is very suspicious, Shinichi thinks. She looks about _his_ age, which, really, is much too young to be a doctor, and has a strangely triumphant look in her eyes. It’s like she’s won something for the first time in her entire life, like she’s finally got something to look forward to.

And all of this is because of Shinichi’s apparent loss of memory.

If she didn’t seem so relieved about it he would be insulted.

_She hasn’t smiled at all though_

_It’s very odd_

“A bit.” Shinichi says carefully “My body feels really weak and I have a slight headache.”

Miyano-sensei nods, glancing down at the file in her arms.

“That makes sense, I heard there were complications during the ambulance ride.”

“Ambulance ride? Excuse me, Miyano-sensei, but could you tell me what happened, exactly? No one’s really told me anything.”

“Of course.” She says “It was at tropical land, you went there with your friend and cousin yesterday, and then you left them, saying you would catch up. They found you a couple of hours later, unresponsive, with a bad head injury. And as for what happened in the ambulance…you had a fit and your heart stopped. It started again, of course. The doctors thought you might have consumed some kind of drug, but there wasn’t anything to be found in your bloodstream. They’ll likely be doing further tests before they release you, just to be sure.”

_Shinichi’s very aware of what that last sentence means_

_They won’t find anything_

_This woman knows that they won’t find anything_

_And something about that makes him suspect that a drug really was involved_

Her gaze is sharp, like she expects him to jump up and say that he remembers it all. He doesn’t remember any of it though.

“Ah, thank you.” He says, looking her right in the eye.

She's involved in this, he knows it. He just doesn’t know how she’s involved. Not to mention how _she’s_ the doctor assigned to him right now. Maybe he’s dealing with something dangerous here. It wouldn’t be wise to mention his suspicions in this hospital.

She asks him a few more questions, does some tests, tells him that the amnesia was caused by both shock and the head wound, tells him he’s unlikely to remember.

_Why would she think that?_

_In most amnesia cases the patient has a chance_

_Maybe she’s just very pessimistic_

She leaves, and she must have told Conan the unlikeliness of his memory returning, because when he comes in he’s quiet and sullen. Ran’s with him this time.

“Really,” She sighs, sitting down in the chair by the bed “you’re such an idiot Shinichi.”

She looks worried, though. And sad.

Shinichi shrugs.

Conan says nothing throughout the whole of the visit. He just looks down at his lap, nods yes or no to questions, and says nothing. He isn’t anything like Shinichi remembers.

_Not that he should be trusting his memory_

_Seeing as he has amnesia_

After an hour they both leave, heading back to Ran’s house. Shinichi wonders where Mrs and Mr. Edogawa are.

_Maybe they left Conan behind_

_Dropped him off with Shinichi and left to travel the world_

_They wouldn’t be the first people in his family to do something like that_

* * *

Ran and Conan come back the next day, after school. Sonoko’s with them this time.

“You better get better soon Shinichi-kun!” She shouts, slamming a pile of detective books onto the side table. Ran places her own pile down much less aggressively.

“Seriously, I mean it. Your wife’s been moping about all day!” Sonoko says, hands on her hips.

“Wife? Geez, Sonoko, if you’re that focused on Ran being someone’s wife why don’t _you_ marry her?”

Ran makes a high-pitched sound of alarm.

“Shinichi! You can’t just say something like that!” She squeaks out.

“F-fine then! I think I will!” Sonoko splutters angrily, grabbing Ran’s hand “Let’s go Ran!”

“S-sonoko! W-wait a minute!” Ran screeches as she’s dragged out of the room, red-faced.

Shinichi turns to smile at Conan, who’s staring at the doorway longingly.

“Don’t worry, they’ll be back.”

Conan doesn’t even acknowledge him.

“H-hey! Conan!”

Nothing.

“Geez, you could at least act like you don’t hate my guts.”

Conan sighs. He turns slightly, to look at him with a scowl.

“I don’t hate you,” he says “I could never hate you. I’m just angry at you.”

“Angry at me? I haven’t even done anything to you!”

“No! You! Well, not _you_ you. I guess, what I mean is, I’m annoyed at the old you, before you forgot.”

Shinichi frowns.

“What did I do?” He asks.

“You left, you weren’t supposed to leave.”

“Maybe I had I reason.”

“It wasn’t good enough.”

Shinichi’s quickly learning how infuriatingly stubborn this child is. He’s unwavering in his anger, not listening to anything Shinichi has to say. It’s _really_ annoying.

“Well aren’t you a charmer.” He says sarcastically.

Conan rounds on him then, eyes glinting dangerously, hands balled into fists.

“You’re really mean, you know!” He shouts “The other you was much nicer! Maybe that’s why your parents left you, because you were awful! They gave up on you because you they could tell you were going to be an awful person Shinichi-niichan!”

That’s…that’s one of Shinichi’s biggest insecurities. He’s always thought over it, again and again, trying to work out just _why_ his parents thought it was a good idea to leave a 14-year-old by himself. And it always came back to something along those lines; he wasn’t good enough, wasn’t nice enough, wasn’t clever enough.

Conan looks at his shocked face for a few seconds, lips trembling, and then he hurries out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

_It hurts, the comment about his parents_

_It really hurts_

_But what hurts even more is Conan’s sad face before he had left the room_

_Shinichi doesn’t really understand that_

_He’s right though_

_They probably did give up on him because of how awful he is_

_He’s always been very blunt, no one really likes that_

* * *

He spends his remaining days in the hospital reading the books that Sonoko and Ran brought him, they’re good.

They do nothing to lift his mood though.

He dreams sometimes, but he barely remembers the dreams. Sometimes it’s a flash of red-covered ground, squelchy and hot beneath his fingers. Sometimes it’s a terrifying grin and silver hair. Sometimes it’s agony and he’s burning, melting, dying.

And sometimes…sometimes it’s Miyano-sensei.

With her short brown hair and triumphantly shining eyes. But they’re not triumphant, not in his dreams. They’re desperate.

_Please, she says, please_

_Just don’t remember_

_You can’t remember_

_They’ll kill you, so please, don’t remember_

Shinichi finds that he doesn’t want to remember. His dreams are filled with so much pain, and he doesn’t want to remember.

* * *

Agasa-hakase drives him home a few days later, after the doctors have done all the tests they can think of.

None of the tests were conclusive; the doctors really can’t find a reason for the fit he had in the ambulance. They do find out, though, that Shinichi’s missing an entire year from his memory.

That’s a plus, he guesses.

_Not really though_

_He’d rather not know_

_A year is an awfully long time_

“If you need anything I’ll be right here.” Agasa-hakase says, waving goodbye to Shinichi and Conan as they cross over to the Kudou mansion.

“Right, right!” Shinichi calls.

As soon as they get indoors Conan snatches his hand away and storms upstairs.

Shinichi sighs, leaning against the front door. He slides down and buries his head in his hands. He’s angry, he realises. Sad, but angry. He knows it’s unreasonable of him, but he hasn’t technically done anything to Conan, and he doesn’t think he should be bearing the brunt of his anger.

Shinichi’s not going to tell him this though, he never speaks his thoughts out. Never let’s anyone see how affected he is.

He wonders if he’s ever felt like this before. Ran had informed him that his aunt and uncle were dead, and Conan has proven that he’s prone to lashing out, so maybe something along the lines of this has happened before. Maybe the old him had known how to deal with it, but Shinichi doesn’t.

_He’s only 15_

_No_

_He’s 16 now_

 

 

 

_…_

 

 

 

_That’s a whole year of his life that’s missing_

_A whole year, and he might never remember it_

_‘The other you was much nicer!’ Conan had shouted the other day_

_Shinichi wonders how that happened_

_A year is long, but it’s still just a year_

_He shouldn’t have gotten so much nicer, couldn’t think of how something like that could change in a year_

_Maybe something bad happened_

_And he knows his aunt and uncle dying is something bad_

_But what if something worse happened_

_What if something happened, and it changed Shinichi_

_He doesn’t remember the dreams very well, but they left him feeling paranoid, staring into the dark, trying to make sure he was alone_

_He thinks, once again, that if his dreams are this awful then maybe it’s best not to remember_


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone wants to know the Kudou Shinichi gossip, Shinichi makes sure they don't get it.

“Man, it seems like it’s been forever since you last walked into this classroom Kudou!” Nakamichi exclaims, slapping a hand down onto his shoulder. He looks excited.

“Ah, well, I’ve been busy.” Shinichi says sheepishly.

“Busy? Busy with what?”

And then every single person in the room turns towards them, it’s suddenly very quiet. He sees a few students at the door, looking in curiously.

“Come on Kudou! What were you busy with?” Nakamichi shouts, wide grin on his face.

He swears someone’s pulled a phone out of their pocket, sometimes he really wishes he wasn’t so famous.

“I, er, well.” Shinichi stumbles over his words.

_He stutters and stops_

_Because Nakamichi looks just a little bit taller_

_Just a little bit older_

“He was busy standing in line to get his head knocked in apparently!” Sonoko announces joyously to the sea of students, standing atop a table for dramatic purposes. Ran’s flitting about below it in worry.

“Sonoko…” Shinichi mutters, glaring over at her. She smirks right back.

“What! I thought you were just getting attacked by ducks?! You know, normal, innocent, not-getting-hit-on-the-head shenanigans!” Nakamichi says hurriedly.

Shinichi stares up at him, blinking.

“…attacked…by ducks…?”

_Just what has he been up to lately?_

“Yeah, you know, the twitter video.”

“uuuh…um. Oh, OH! That video! Yes, that one! The one with the ducks, and the attacking. I totally remember it.” By the concerned look on Nakamichi’s face Shinichi’s guessing that he looks half crazy.

“…are you…okay?” The other boy asks carefully.

“He’s perfectly fine!” Ran says, grabbing Shinichi’s arm with a nervous grin on her face. She drags him away from the crowd and pushes him down into a chair. A chair that happens to be in front of the desk Sonoko is standing on. Sonoko kneels down and brings her face close to Shinichi’s. Ran does the same, pulling a chair over to sit next to him.

“Why’re you covering up your amnesia?” Sonoko murmurs, glaring over her shoulder. She gestures over to Ran and someone makes a terrified squeaking sound, probably coming to the conclusion that Ran would beat them up if they came closer.

Ran nods along to Sonoko’s question, coming even closer. Both of them look serious, even Sonoko, and Shinichi is thankful for that.

“Those people that hit me over the head, they sent someone to the hospital.” He says.

“WHAT!” Ran shrieks angrily, standing up from the chair.

“Hey, hey, calm down!” Sonoko whispers loudly, pushing her back down into the chair. She turns around quickly to bear her teeth at the rest of the class, who are looking over curiously.

Shinichi tugs at Sonoko’s sleeve to get her attention and leans over to whisper in Ran’s ear.

She looks like she’s ready to murder someone.

“It was Miyano-sensei, they sent her to gather information, I guess. When she talked to me alone, about my amnesia, it was probably to see whether or not they needed to get rid of me.”

Ran shifts forward, hand coming down to grip at his knee tightly.

“Get. Rid. Of. You.” She grits out.

Shinichi nods.

“Yeah, I must have seen something that day, at tropical land. Something bad. I have a feeling that we’re dealing with a group of people here, and that these people hold a lot of power – Miyano-sensei is young, probably not much older than us. There’s no way that she’s an actual doctor. So these people pulled some strings, they got her in, which brings me onto the real question here: _why her_?”

Sonoko plants a hand onto his desk, another on Ran’s shoulder, leaning even further over. He wonders what this must look like to the other students; three people piling on top of each other, whispering amongst themselves. There’s no doubt that this would be enough gossip for _months_ if they got a hold of it.

“Miyano-sensei mentioned something. She said that the doctors thought I might have consumed some kind of drug, but that they couldn’t find anything in my bloodstream. She said they would probably be doing further tests, to see if they could find anything. There was this look in her eyes, though, she looked certain. Certain that they wouldn’t find anything.”

“Doesn’t that mean that there wasn’t a drug then.” Sonoko says, brows drawing up in confusion.

“Maybe. That’s a possibility. It’s the more likely possibility.

“But I think there was a drug. She seemed _really_ focused on me when she talked about it, _and_ it would explain the fit I had in the ambulance.”

“Never took you for a conspiracy theorist.” Sonoko snorts. But she doesn’t sound very confident in what she’s said.

“I believe you, Shinichi.” Ran whispers.

“They sent Miyano-sensei because she created the drug. They wanted to take blood samples, to see why it didn’t kill me. They were probably planning on killing me after that but decided not too because of my amnesia. And because of how risky it would be to kill such a famous person.”

“So why aren’t we telling anyone about your amnesia, wouldn’t that make them even more certain in it? Isn't that our goal, to make them sure that you can't remember anything.” Ran asks, eyes boring worriedly into his.

“I think they’re going to send someone else to spy on us; to see our reactions and make sure that I won’t remember. They’ll probably mention the amnesia, or at least ask questions related to it. If we don’t tell anyone, we can see who the enemy is. It’ll be the only person that knows about the amnesia.”

It’s at that moment that the teacher comes in, folder held in his arms. He glances over at the three of them suspiciously. They probably look like they’re planning a prank.

“Geez,” Sonoko says, moving away to slide off the desk “I really wish you’d told us this earlier Shinichi-kun. We could’ve blown your cover.”

Ran nods.

“Yeah, that was very dumb Shinichi.” She shifts back a little bit “I’m a little worried though. If there is a drug, and it didn’t turn up in the doctors’ tests, it’s probably really dangerous.”

She stands, biting her lip, and moves her chair back into its place: at the desk next to Shinichi’s.

A girl rushes for the chair, looking delighted at the prospect of questioning Shinichi, but Ran elbows her in the face and sits down heavily. They’re in the front row, with Sonoko sitting behind him, and Shinichi’s thankful for that. This way no one can ask him any confusing questions that he doesn’t know the answer to.

* * *

Ran and Sonoko spend the entire day crowding around him, not letting a single person get through. It’s a bit of a relief when they don’t come with him to pick Conan up from school.

Shinichi’s fairly certain that the only reason Conan wanted to go to school was because it would mean less time around him. He’s also fairly certain that Conan is still angry.

Sure enough, when Conan comes marching out of the school he has a look of pure outrage on his face.

What surprises Shinichi is the group of children trailing after him.

Conan grabs his hand roughly, glaring back at the children.

“Let’s go Shinichi-niichan.” He says, attempting to drag him forward.

“Conan-kun, you’re being really rude! We just want to be your friends!” One of the children, a girl with a white headband, says, pouting.

Conan grinds his teeth.

“Shinichi-niichan, let’s go. Now.” He says, tugging at his hand.

But Shinichi just smirks.

He can use this.

Conan’s been really horrible for the past week and now Shinichi has a way to pay him back. He beams down at the boy.

“Alright, let’s go. We should get ice cream.” He glances over to the three children “Do your friends want some as well?”

And that does it, the children circle in like sharks, grabbing and pulling at Shinichi’s arms. Conan trudges behind them grumpily as they make their way down the pavement.

Shinichi learns a lot during their walk to the nearest ice cream shop. He learns that the girl is called Ayumi, that she loves the colour pink, that she really likes lemon sorbet, even if it is a little sour, and that her favourite flavour is strawberry. He learns that the larger boy is called Genta, and that he’s going to make a very big dent in his wallet. He learns that the tall, freckled boy is called Mitsuhiko, and that he’s a very logical person.

He also learns that all three of them can talk a lot.

“Shinichi-niichan! Shinichi-niichan!” Ayumi-chan gushes, pointing over to another cherry blossom tree “Look at that one! Isn't it beautiful!”

It looks exactly the same as every other one she's pointed out.

“Ah, you’re right.” Shinichi says, smiling nervously.

“What about this one? Can you solve it?” Mitsuhiko asks, gazing up at him in awe and shoving his phone into Shinichi’s face. There’s a page with an unsolved mystery dating back to 1823 on it. Shinichi’s seen it before.

“The maid. With an axe.” He says on autopilot.

“…Green tea, and caramel, and chocolate, and strawberry, and watermelon, and...” Genta sings (more like shouts, the boy really isn’t that good at singing. Not that Shinichi has a place to judge), swinging their clasped hands up and down enthusiastically.

He finds that Genta’s the easiest to deal with. Genta hasn’t asked him many questions, content to just sing loudly about ice cream.

Conan snorts behind him, apparently finding the children’s single-minded focus on him amusing. Although Shinichi does admit that he brought it on himself.

He finally gets a reprieve when Genta stops.

“Ah! Ice cream!” He shouts, and then he’s dragging Shinichi along in his mad dash towards the ice cream store.

It has blue walls and blue tables and seems, strangely, familiar. The lady at the counter perks up when she sees them.

“Are there going to be even more the next time you come.” She comments in amusement.

Shinichi pauses.

“Huh?”

“She’s talking about the last time we came here.” Conan says dryly “Which you would remember if you hadn’t we―” Shinichi quickly covers Conan’s mouth with his hand.

Maybe it _was_ stupid to not tell everyone to keep his amnesia secret.

He crouches down, taking Conan by the shoulders, staring into his eyes seriously.

“Listen, those people who hit me over the head had a spy.” He whispers “A spy they sent to the hospital. I think they might send another one. If we don’t talk about my amnesia then we can locate them easily. They’d be the only one mentioning it.”

“Okay.” Conan nods, and maybe it’s just Shinichi’s imagination, but he looks less angry.

He stands up to find the children and lady staring at them curiously.

“Is something wrong?” The woman asks.

“No, it’s fine! I’m gonna get a table.” Conan says cheerily. It’s obnoxiously fake.

“Right, ice cream.” Shinichi sighs, smiling stressfully.

The children immediately start crowding around the counter, staring at the ice cream chilling inside it. It doesn’t stop the woman from frowning at him in concern.

Ayumi-chan orders strawberry, Mitsuhiko orders caramel, and Genta orders so many different flavours that Shinichi can’t remember them all. Shinichi orders coffee-flavoured ice cream for himself and

For Conan.

He doesn’t know why he did that, it isn’t exactly a flavour that many kids like.

Conan looks surprised when he sets it down in front of him.

“Coffee?” He asks.

“I can get you something else if you want.” Shinichi shrugs “I don’t really know why I ordered it, it just seemed right.”

“No,” Conan says, looking away from him “I like this flavour.

“Okay.” And that’s the end of that. It’s probably the longest conversation they’ve had since he left the hospital, but it’s awkward and confusing.

And Conan isn’t angry, he doesn’t spit insults at Shinichi every few seconds, he doesn’t even shout at Genta when the other boy accidentally elbows him in the face. Instead he tentatively listens as Ayumi regales a story her mother read to her the night before.

He looks a little sad, though, and Shinichi remembers that Conan doesn’t have a mother anymore. Shinichi subtly turns the conversation in another direction, telling them about a murder he and Ran encountered on an airplane to America. He pretends not to notice that Conan is hanging onto every word he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must admit, the first part kind of made me want to put Sonoko, Ran, and Shinichi in a poly relationship. I've already decided on Shinichi/Kaito though


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinichi goes ghost hunting with Conan and the gang™

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: Conan takes down a woman with his bare hands and he's pretty violent about it. I'm not quite sure if it warrants putting an archive warning up, but I'm gonna put this here just in case. I didn't really go into detail, though, so it's probably fine.
> 
> This is also the longest chapter I've written and there aren't any breaks in it, so that's cool.

It’s less tense now, the atmosphere between them. That’s not to say that it isn’t awkward, because _Oh God it is awkward_ , but it’s really not as tense as it used to be. Shinichi’s not quite sure what he did in that ice cream shop, but it appears to have affected Conan at least a little. Still, it’s awkward.

And heavy.

Shinichi tries to talk to Conan, to lighten the mood. But even if Conan’s stopped actively disliking him, started trying to reign in his anger, he still looks at Shinichi like he’s the source of all his troubles.

And sometimes he really can’t hold back his angriness, sometimes he blows up in Shinichi’s face and insults him, calls him dumb, blames him for everything. Once he called him an imposter. He hadn’t meant to say it, but he’d said it and that’s all there was to it.

It’s a weird feeling, being an imposter in your own body. And he doesn’t just feel like that around Conan; he felt that way around _everyone_. Someone will say something, _anything_ , about him and he’ll just stop, stare at them strangely. Because it wasn’t him who did that – he didn’t stand in for anyone in a soccer match, didn’t help anyone with a maths problem.

He did none of that.

It was someone else.

And that someone else was him.

Shinichi sighs, opening the door to one of the sitting rooms. He’s always liked this sitting room; it’s small and comfy, with blankets draped over the sofa – they’re very handy in the Winter. No one else ever really ventures there, the room’s quite far into the house (if you can call it that, it’s more of a mansion to be honest) and the door is made to blend into the wall seamlessly (and it took Shinichi _years_ to find this room). It’s really quite perfect for people with the intention of being alone.

Or for people that need to hide.

With no windows at all and curtains stretching across the walls, it was really something. Not to mention the decorative swords, which are a little too sharp to be safely considered decorative, hidden behind the curtains. Or the trap door beneath the rug that leads to a small bathroom. _Or_ the _trap door in the ceiling_ that leads to a tiny kitchen filled with canned goods.

_Sometimes Shinichi wonders if his parents were smoking something when they designed the house_

_Or if they were preparing for something_

_Something bad_

Shinichi had woken up shaking, shivering. And it wasn’t because the room was cold, it was because he’d had a nightmare. It really shouldn’t have left him feeling so awful; he barely remembers it, but there was something wrong there, something bad.

He stops at the coffee table, there’s a dvd case on it. It’s dusty, lying there, growing old and forgotten. He picks it up, blows the dust off of the bright pink cover, sneezing when it gets up his nose.

“Cardcaptor Sakura?” Shinichi asks, reading the title.

_And Conan’s voice echoes it in his head_

_Pinched face and judging eyes_

_“Cardcaptor Sakura?”_

_He thinks there’s something else there_

_Maybe a comment about his mum_

_Or pattering rain_

_But he can’t really tell_

_It’s all just jumbled_

He sets the case back down, unwilling to linger on it. Shinichi strides out as quickly as he can, throat constricting, eyes suspiciously wet. He feels inexplicably sad.

Shinichi decides to head to the library, maybe read a book to calm his nerves.

He gets to the staircase when he sees it: Conan, sneaking out.

Immediately, he assumes the worst – that Conan is running away – but he’s wrong.

“Ayumi-chan wants to hunt ghosts.” The boy shrugs.

And Shinichi says he can’t go out alone this late at night. To which Conan replies ‘you can come with us’. Shinichi doesn’t really want to ruin their fun, and leaving three children on their own outside a ‘haunted’ mansion at such a late hour just doesn’t sit right with him.

So he joins them.

The children don’t really seem to mind, seeming more at ease with someone older around.

“Alright everyone!” Genta shouts, baseball bate slung over his shoulder, taking up the role of the leader in their ghost hunt “Bring out the stuff you’ve brought!”

He presents the baseball bat proudly.

“I brought this steel bat! If any ghosts appear I’ll…” And then he goes through a bunch of overexaggerated hitting motions with the bat. Shinichi’s rather thankful that he’s not a ghost.

“I brought snacks!” Ayumi-chan chirps, holding open a backpack.

Mitsuhiko crouches down and opens up the bag he brought with him. He fishes out four flashlights and a compass.

“I brought a compass in case we get lost. And flashlights for everyone...well, everyone except Shinichi-niichan.” He looks guiltily up at Shinichi.

“It’s fine,” Shinichi says, taking his phone from his pocket and waving it in front of his face “I can use my phone.”

“What about Conan-kun? What did you bring?” Ayumi-chan asks sweetly, crowding into Conan’s personal space.

“Ah, I…uh, I brought Shinichi-niichan.” Conan says, stepping back warily.

“A wise choice.” Mitsuhiko says, hand under chin, nodding seriously. Shinichi swears he hears Genta muttering something about meat shields.

He pointedly ignores that.

“Alright,” He says, smiling down at the children “shall we get to ghost hunting?”

“Yeah!” The kids shout, and Mistuhiko heads towards the gate.

“Wait just a minute!” Conan shouts. Mitsuhiko stops and turns.

“Conan-kun?” He says in confusion. And Genta jumps into the conversation gleefully.

“Ah!” He yells “You scouted this place out too, huh? He’s right, Mitsuhiko, the gate won’t work! We have to use the secret entrance!”

“Ah, that’s not what I meant.” Conan says, cringing at the amount of noise Genta is making. Shinichi quickly looks at the houses around them to make sure no one is coming out. As humorous as the idea of a _detective_ getting arrested for breaking into a house is, he doesn’t exactly like the concept when _he_  is the detective.

“What I meant was that we should film this. Shinichi-niichan, give me your phone.”

_Give me your phone_

_A sense of déjà vu washes over him_

_And Shinichi says it without thinking_

“Okay, but don’t make another twitter account.”

Conan stares up at him with wide, wide eyes.

Shinichi pauses, phone extended, because he doesn’t know why he said that. There _is_ no twitter account, has _never_ been a twitter account, so _why did he say that_?

“You…you remember?” Conan breathes out slowly.

“I…no, sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

And Conan’s eyes tear up, a mad look overtaking his face. He snatches the phone out of Shinichi’s hands almost violently.

_Now Shinichi doesn’t have a torch_ or _a phone_

The other children look between them nervously, but then Genta shouts about the secret entrance again. He leads them over to the side of the house, presenting them with the prior-mentioned secret entrance, old and small and wooden.

“It was covered in grass.” He tells them proudly, pushing it open for everyone to walk through. Shinichi ends up having to crawl through on his hands and knees. And he really hopes that Conan hasn’t started filming yet because it would really ruin his reputation as a respectable detective if it got uploaded to the internet.

_Breaking into a house isn’t very respectable either_

_Shinichi ignores that thought though_

_Because, even if he_ is _a detective, the children come first_

_This is his second time meeting those three children and, already, he’s breaking into buildings for them. In Shinichi’s defence, they’re very endearing_

He does find it a little weird though, the secret entrance. Just why is there a secret entrance? He catches Conan looking thoughtfully towards it but none of the other children seem to notice anything off.

“Conan-kun, Shinichi-niichan,” Ayumi-chan shouts “hurry up!”

They walk quickly over to the others. They’re in front of what Shinichi assumes to be the back door, it’s old and surprisingly clear of the ivy that grows on the walls. Shinichi frowns.

It’s unnatural.

“Hey, it’s unlocked!” Genta says in surprise, turning the door handle.

They all peer inside. It’s pitch black, the only light coming from the door they had just opened. Shinichi wasn’t really a fan of horror movies, had only ever seen one at Sonoko’s Halloween party the year before (or two years before, he supposes), but this looked like the set-up for a horror movie.

“H-hey, maybe we should go home…” Ayumi-chan says, arms folded over her chest, a terrified look on her face.

“Idiot! After we’ve come this far?! If you wanna go home then go by yourself!” It’s a little harsh, what Genta says, and Shinichi’s getting ready to reprimand him for it. Because, even if these children aren’t Conan, he’s the one looking after them right now, and Ayumi-chan looks on the verge of tears.

But then there’s a flash of lightening, and Ayumi-chan _screams_. She runs without hesitation into the dark, scary building. She bumps into something and falls.

Looking up she sees a horrific sculpture.

She screams again.

But it’s just a sculpture, and Mitsuhiko says as much, shining his light up at it. The whole room is filled with sculptures – each one ugly and undeserving of existence.

“The is just awful!” Ayumi-chan complains, pouting “I just slipped and my hands got all dirty.”

“It is pretty dusty in here, I don’t think anyone’s been here for years.” Conan comments, even if he’s looking doubtfully at the door they came through.

_So he noticed the ivy too_

They walk through the room, and it’s really more of a foyer, shining their torches over everything in sight. There’s a railing overhead, and staircases running up  the sides of the room.

“Ah,” Ayumi-chan chirps, opening a door “a bathroom!”

She turns on the taps to wash her hands and water _actually_ comes out, _which doesn’t make sense_! If this mansion is abandoned then it shouldn’t have running water.

Once she’s done washing her hands they make their way up the left-hand staircase.

“When we’re all walking around like this it’s like we’re roleplaying.” Genta declares, marching along happily, the bat still slung over his shoulder.

“I’m the hero, obviously.” He adds.

“I’m the cute warrior girl!” Ayumi-chan chirps.

“I’m the sharp-minded wizard.” Mitsuhiko says proudly.

Conan tilts his head, considering the options. He opens his mouth.

“Then I’ll be―”

“You’re a villager!” Genta shouts, pointing dramatically at Conan.

“But they’re not part of the party, are they?” Conan asks, annoyed frown on his face.

“But you’re an important character that gives us hints!” Ayumi-chan says.

“Yeah,” Mitsuhiko agrees “you’re really clever, and you even found Ayumi-chan’s notebook the other day. See, you’re helpful, like villager.”

“But what about Shinichi-niichan?” Ayumi-chan wonders.

Conan smirks up at him.

“That’s easy, Shinichi-niichan’s the princess trapped in the tower.”

Shinichi’s eye twitches.

“Huh? That can’t be right! Shinichi-niichan’s really cool! He’d be…uuh…maybe…well, I don’t know, but he wouldn’t be the princess!” Genta protests, looking at Conan with a glare.

It’s, admittedly, a very weak protest. Shinichi’s thankful for it anyway.

“Ah, you’d be surprise. It was only three weeks ago that Shinichi-niichan got hit on the head by some bad guys. _And_ he fainted. Ran-nēchan had to call an ambulance cause he wouldn’t wake up.”

“Conan…” Shinichi says grumpily, crossing his arms.

The children eat it all up and surround him. Genta takes the front, Conan the back, Mitsuhiko the left, and Ayumi-chan the right. They claim that they’re protecting the princess, but Conan calls him ‘Shinichi-hime’ and he knows that Conan’s not doing it for the roleplay aspect.

A door creaks open and suddenly all of the children are piled behind him, quivering in fear.

“Come on, move, Shinichi-niichan!” Genta yells.

“I thought I was the princes.” Shinichi complains.

“You’re a very _strong_ princess!” Ayumi says desperately.

Shinichi huffs out a laugh and walks forward, and Conan’s walking right next to him, phone held out, filming everything. He just knows that Sonoko’s going to get a laugh out of this.

The room is small, with shelving units at each end. There’s a chair in front of a window. It’s open, curtains billowing inwards from the wind.

_Ah, Shinichi thinks, that’s our ghost_

Mitsuhiko seems to be on the same trail of thought.

“Ah, I see, the wind blew the door open.” He says happily, moving over to shut the window “Explaining ghosts is just that simple.”

“You’re like a detective Mitsuhiko-kun!” Ayumi-chan beams.

“Ah, thank you.” He laughs, blushing, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Then he heads off out of the room, saying that he needs to use the bathroom. Conan crouches down by the window, flashlight in one hand, phone in the other. He’s searching for something, Shinichi realises.

“I gotta say though, this house is huge.” Genta comments, looking around.

“Yeah! The owner must have been really rich!” Ayumi-chan cheers.

And then they’re back to waiting…

And waiting…

And waiting…

And―

“Mitsuhiko-kun’s late.” Ayumi-chan says worriedly from her position on the floor.

 “It’s been 20 minutes already.” Conan comments, looking at his watch, surprised.

“You sure he’s not taking a dump?” Genta says gleefully, leaning back against the shelving unit.

Shinichi frowns.

“Let’s give him five more minutes and then go looking for him.” He says.

But then

Screaming.

Shinichi hears someone screaming.

_Someone’s screaming_

_It’s loud and horrid_

_He wishes they would stop_

_They don’t stop_

_It’s sounds like they’re dying, being murdered_

_Just like Shinichi_

“Th-that’s Mitsuhiko-kun’s voice!” Ayumi-chan shouts, panicked, and it shakes Shinichi out of it. He feels disoriented and dizzy, like he’s the one that screamed.

But horror washes over him, because it _was_ Mitsuhiko’s voice.

It was coming from below them.

He rushes out without thinking. Because it can’t be happening, not again. ( _and why does he think that? Not again?_ ) He’s had enough of losing. Mitsuhiko _won’t_ die, not when he’s in charge of looking after him, _not ever_.

Conan’s right at his heels, and he thinks he hears Ayumi-chan and Genta following after them, but he doesn’t think about that.

He just runs.

Pushes himself further and further, breathes in, breathes out, in a panicked haze. He runs and runs and runs and runs.

And then he falls, collapses onto the floor, grasping at his chest. It hurts he realises, it burns.

“Shinichi-niichan!” Conan yells, skidding to a halt in front of him, eyes filled with fear. Fear for him.

They’re in the foyer, Shinichi notices.

“ _I’m fine_!” He snarls out, pushing Conan’s worrying hands away. He stands up, breathing heavily.

_And immediately regrets it_

_Because Conan has a wounded look on his face_

_Because his chest still burns_

_But that doesn’t matter_

_Not right now_

_Mitsuhiko’s in danger_

“That room over there!” He shouts, pointing over to a room “Hide! All of you! I’ll look for Mitsuhiko!”

“We’re not leaving you!” Conan screeches back, voice wobbly.

“ _NOW_!” Shinichi says, desperately, and that provides sufficient distraction.

Because he’s never shouted at Conan before, not once. Conan is looking up at him in horror, tears in his eyes, and Shinichi hates it but it’s necessary.

_No one_ is getting hurt today.

_Except Shinichi_

_Because he doesn’t matter_

_He’s barely even Shinichi right now, not to Conan_

_Just an imposter in his own skin_

_Sorry, he thinks, I’ve left you again_

And he really should have seen this coming, because this place is _not_ abandoned. It looks abandoned, everyone says it’s abandoned, but it’s _not_. Abandoned houses don’t have running water, they don’t have secret entrances, nor doors cleared of ivy.

This house isn’t abandoned.

He opens a door, the room’s dark, very dark, and he doesn’t have a torch, doesn’t have his phone. But, he thinks, if there’s running water, then there should be working lights as well. He feels along the wall for a switch and flips it on when he finds it.

Light immediately floods the room, coming down from a chandelier. He’s in a study, bookshelves along every wall, desk in the middle. He walks forward and plucks a framed photo off of it.

It’s of a family – man, woman, son. He remembers the man’s face from a news article ~~four~~ five years back. The culprit was never found, he remembers, he’d heard that the remaining family had moved away somewhere.

_But…_

_What if…_

There’s a scream and it takes Shinichi a second to realise it’s Genta. Panic sets in again and he takes off running, throwing the photograph down onto the desk.

_Please…_

_Please, just be alright…_

He turns down a corner and sees Ayumi-chan at the end of it, in a corridor that connects to the one he’s in.

She’s all alone, staring over at something in terror.

_And Oh God, he thinks_

_Because either they’ve all split up, or Conan’s with Genta_

_And neither option is good_

He runs over and grabs her, pulling her into the corridor, covering her mouth with his hand. She struggles at first, and he feels tears running down his hand.

“Hey, it’s just me.” He whispers.

She calms down immediately, nodding against him.

He sets her down gently and removes his hand, crouching down in the dark so that whatever Ayumi-chan was staring at doesn’t see them.

_And his chest has started hurting again_

_Not as badly as last time_

_But it still aches_

There’s a rattling noise, coming closer and closer.

Closer, closer still.

A shadow falls down in front of them, lit by some kind of light source.

Then a trolley comes into view, something on top of it, covered by a sheet. There’s an old woman pushing the trolley, holding a lit candle. She looks just like the woman in the photograph, except she’s old a frail, with impossibly long hair and a crazed look in her eyes.

_For a moment he thinks he’s seen her before_

_That she’s a he, with long silver hair, and a black outfit_

_Promising murder with his mad, mad grin_

“It’s a ghost.” Ayumi-chan whisper-yells, clutching his arm in terror.

“No, just a person.” Shinichi comforts her.

He runs after her, Ayumi-chan following behind. Pressing himself against the wall he peers around the corner she just disappeared down, only to find

“Sh-she’s gone!” Shinichi shouts in surprise, rounding the corner. All that’s left to suggest she was there is the trolley, whatever was under the sheet is gone. There aren’t any rooms, no where she could have disappeared into, just a dead end.

“ _She really was a ghost_!” Ayumi-chan shrieks tearfully, grabbing at his waist and hiding her face in his stomach.

“Hey, hey.” Shinichi says calmingly, patting her head “There must be an explanation, no need to panic. Can I borrow your torch?”

She hesitantly removes herself from his person, handing the torch over silently.

Shinichi shines it on the floor.

Just as he thought – a trap door.

He crouches down to pull it open. It’s heavy, but he manages.

“How did you know there was a trap door?!” Ayumi-chan gushes, her voice filled with admiration.

“My house has a lot of these.” Shinichi says cheerily. And then Ayumi-chan beams up at him, a blush overtaking her face.

“Shinichi-niichan! You’re amazing!” She exclaims.

Beneath the trap doors is a series of stairs leading down to a basement. Ayumi-chan keeps close to him, hands pressed up against his back, as they creep down.

He thinks that maybe Mitsuhiko and Genta are down here ( _and Conan too, if he was with Genta_ ).

They reach the basement, and Shinichi turns the door knob. He presses up against the door, peering inside. Ayumi-chan looks out from behind him.

And it’s a cell, the room is cell. An actual, real-life, cell. There’s a thin, wire grating going against one side of the room. A bed and a table behind it.

“Th-there’s someone in there Shinichi-niichan!” Ayumi-chan whispers, hand still pressed against his back.

Shinichi pauses, heart pounding wildly. There _is_ someone in there.

He shines Ayumi-chan’s flashlight on them and they don’t even notice, too busy sobbing into their hands. They’re wild, wilder than the woman from earlier. And this is so much nightmare fuel that Shinichi wants desperately to shield Ayumi-chan’s eyes. It’s too late now, though, she’s already seen the man, already had her childhood innocence shredded away by this ‘ghost hunt’.

Shinichi regrets going into the house with them, regrets not pulling them back and telling them to head home.

Because Ayumi-chan’s never going to forget this; she’s going to wake up screaming night after night, images of a wild, wild man running through her head. The smell of faeces, and dirt, and rotting _something_. And all of the other children might be dead, silenced by a single night of adventure, never to speak again. He feels tears prickle against his eyes and look down at Ayumi-chan in horror.

She meets his gaze, tears running down her face. She chews on her lip nervously, and then she removes her hand from his back, reaches out to grasp his hand.

“It’s okay, Shinichi-niichan.” She says tearfully, breath hitching “You’re allowed to be scared too.”

He nods, feels something wet on his cheeks.

And then the man looks at them and screams, low-pitched and mad.

They hear the sound of someone coming.

Shinichi panics and shoves Ayumi-chan behind an old locker, grabbing a broomstick to keep it from falling when she pulls him over with her. He sets the broomstick against the wall, crouches down and drags her against his chest, covering her mouth in case of screaming. She breathes heavily against him, shaking.

There’s a clinking sound, as if something’s being set down.

“You were having another nightmare…” Someone says, a woman, probably the same on they’d seen earlier.

There’s ragged breath – the man.

“You poor thing…”

“But that was five years ago, you should just forget about it already.”

That confirms his theory – this is the woman and son from the photograph. Most likely, judging from their conversation, the son had killed the man. And the woman was covering it up.

_Against his will, he adds_

_Since the man is in a cell_

“Go on, eat.” There’s a rough, scraping sound, as if something’s being pushed along the floor.

Then smashing, and crashing, and clinking. Shinichi’s guessing the man doesn’t want to eat.

“I’m not keeping you in here to make you suffer you know,” The woman says “This is all for your future.”

Ayumi-chan shifts against him and

The broom falls.

Shinichi reaches out quickly, grabbing it just in time. Ayumi-chan sighs in relief against him.

But then there’s a scraping of metal against metal above them. He looks up just in time to see a bucket fall from the locker. It hits the ground with a loud clang. The silence is broken.

Shinichi is terrified.

There’s a shifting sound.

“Looks like some more rats wondered in here…” The woman mutters.

“Now come out of there.” She says. There’s glee in her voice, as if she’s given up on morals “There’s no point in hiding. Come out.”

“Huh?” Shinichi mocks, voice cocky, broom still held tightly in his hands. Ayumi-chan stills against him “No point in hiding? Shouldn’t I be telling you that? I found it earlier, in the study, that photograph. A picture of you with the owner of this mansion, who was murdered 5 years ago. There was someone in the photo with you, probably your son, the man in the cell! I thought something was odd the moment we stepped foot in this mansion. Even after all these years the electricity and water hasn’t been cut off.

“Strange, isn’t it? There aren’t many people that would pay the water bill for an abandoned house. Also, the hidden entrance. The wood on it was brand new. It was made so you could come and go from this house without being seen, right? But there’s no reason for all of that when you haven’t even done anything. Which leads me to this, _why is your son in a cell_?”

“Wh-who are you?!” The woman shrieks madly.

“Kudou Shinichi,” He smirks, stepping out from behind the locker, broom in hand, Ayumi-chan clutching at his leg “a detective.”

“D-detective?” The woman crows uselessly, a knife clenched in her hand.

“In this situation there are two explanations.” Shinichi says. And, yes, maybe he’s being a little dramatic, but he feels like the situation warrants a little drama “One, that you, the wife, killed your husband five years ago, and confined your son in here after he witnessed the murder. The other…”

He trails off, staring into the cell sadly.

“The other,” he starts again “that he was the murderer. When you learnt of his crime you hid the truth and covered for him.

“However, the guilt was too much for him. He wanted to turn himself in, but you wouldn’t let him, so you trapped him in that cell. Just until he changed his mind, or the statue of limitations expired.

“That’s right, in a desperate attempt to save him from a life in jail, you trapped him in there, never to see the light of the sun again – your own son. Judging from your conversation and your reaction right now…”

“…shut up…”

“The one who murdered the owner was likely…”

“ _I SAID SHUT UP_!”

And she charges at him, too quick, too sudden, for Shinichi to stop, knocks the broom out of his hands.

It falls down to the floor uselessly.

He’s wrenched from Ayumi-chan’s grip on him ( _she cries out, tripping backwards. Shinichi hates it_ ), thrown against the wall, knife poised at him.

“ _STOP IT_!” The man pleads.

But she doesn’t listen, shaking hand coming closer and closer to his throat.

She pulls her arm pack again and goes in for the kill, a crazed look in her eyes.

And Shinichi _stills_. He can’t move.

_Because she looks just like someone_

_A man_

_With silver hair and cold eyes_

_He promises murder_

The knife comes closer and closer, and Shinichi squeezes his eyes shut.

He hears a snarl from the other end of the room, animalistic and angry. Running footsteps. There’s a crashing sound, right in front of him, the woman yelling, Ayumi-chan screaming.

Metal slices through his neck, cold and bitter.

 

 

 

It hurts.

 

 

 

But it isn’t as deep as it should have been, doesn’t send him gurgling on air, trying desperately to breathe.

There’s a tumbling sound, and more screaming joins the mix.

It’s not Ayumi-chan’s, it’s Conan’s.

He opens his eyes, hand pressing at his bloody throat.

Shinichi’s breath stutters to a halt.

Conan and the lady are on the floor, the knife down by the lady’s feet. Ayumi-chan sits transfixed with the horrifying scene in front of them, eyes wide.

Conan’s sitting on the woman’s chest, tears streaming from his eyes, hands clawing at her face, enraged. And Shinichi’s not really sure what he’s been seeing these past few weeks, because that wasn’t angry, _this_ is angry.

There’s blood on his fingers, and Shinichi thinks he caught the woman’s eyes. She’s yelling, hands pushing at the boy, terrified.

“Conan-kun!” Shinichi shouts desperately.

But Conan’s in a world of his own and he doesn’t stop. Just keeps clawing and screaming.

“Conan-kun!” Shinichi shouts again, falling to the ground to grab his hands.

Conan looks at him then, eyes wild.

_He looks terrified_

_Terrified and angry_

_Like he’s just lost Shinichi again_

“You can stop now.” Shinichi chokes out around the stinging of his throat.

Conan nods silently, vacantly, desperate eyes never leaving Shinichi’s.

_And his eyes, Shinichi remembers, were wide and terrified_

_They’d said it all_

_‘Please don’t make me lose someone else to them’_

Conan continues to be silent as Shinichi pulls up and him off the woman. He continue’s to be silent as Ayumi-chan flinches away from him, before looking at him guiltily and giving him a hug. He continues to be silent as he leads them over to where Genta and Mitsuhiko are sleeping outside the house. He continues to be silent as Shinichi picks his phone up from the wet grass and calls the police…

…and tells them to bring an ambulance…

He’s still silent when Shinichi rings all the children’s parents, getting their phone numbers off of Mitsuhiko.

He continues to be silent throughout all of it.

In the end Shinichi has to go in the ambulance as well as the woman - his injury is worse than he thought and he's been feeling dizzy and sick ever since they started the trek outside. Ayumi-chan’s mother (a tall, smart-looking woman, still wearing her bedclothes underneath her coat and shoes) ushers him into the ambulance with assurances that she’ll look after Conan. She makes sure to thank him profusely for looking after the children.

Shinichi doesn’t think he deserves that thanks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shinichi just can't keep out of the hospital, can he.
> 
> Also, I feel like I need to apologise for this chapter cause it's so psychologically horrifying. This case is one of my favourites from the canon series so I couldn't resist adding it in, but it would also, realistically, be a very horrifying case and pure nightmare fuel.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinichi isn't allowed to talk, because that's probably the dumbest thing a person with a neck injury could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was really hard to write. I'm not sure if it's cause I'm really looking forward to the next chapter, I've had college the last few days, or if it's just the fact that I have no idea how neck injuries are treated and can't find much about it online.

“Shinichi-niichan!” Ayumi-chan shouts happily, bursting into the room. She climbs onto the hospital bed without hesitation to collapse on top of him with a hug.

Shinichi feels laughter bubbling out of his throat and he reaches around to pull the little girl against him.

“I’m so _happy_ to see you!” She beams into his neck, hands wrapped messily around his shoulders.

“Okay, okay…ow.” Shinichi chuckles, wincing.

Because it turns out that neck injuries tend to be rather serious, which, really, he should’ve expected. Swallowing, talking, and laughing are all very painful activities when you have a gash running along your throat, even if it _has_ been stitched up and bandaged.

Shinichi hadn’t even noticed it the night before, hadn’t felt the pain at all. He’d been so jumped up on adrenaline, so focused on getting the children to safety, that he completely forgot about it until Ayumi-chan’s mother had forced him into the ambulance.

Despite all of it, though, he only has to stay until the end of the next day. As long as he doesn’t do anything stupid he’s unlikely to pull the stitches.

The girl jumps off of the bed quickly, worried that she’s the one causing the pain. And, to be honest, she is – because she’s the one making him laugh, making him talk. It isn’t her fault though. Shinichi panics and blurts out that she’s not the one that tried to kill him, and Ayumi-chan panics at the further wincing that induces. She apologises for just sitting there in shock the night before, and then Shinichi panics some more and, really, it’s all quite a mess.

Her mother, standing at the door beside a hesitant-looking Conan, smiles at him.

Last night Shinichi had observed that she was a smart-looking woman, and that was even more true now that she wasn’t in her night clothes. A sharply cut bob-style haircut, high-heels, and fashionable suit made for a very imposing woman. But despite all that, she is actually very friendly.

She comes forward, hand held out.

“Yoshida Hanako,” She says kindly as he shakes her hand “it’s a pleasure to meet you Kudou Shinichi-kun.”

“We met―”

Yoshida-san quickly covers his mouth with her hand, a frown on her face.

“It’s causing you pain to talk, right? You shouldn’t talk if it’s hurting you.”

Shinichi nods reluctantly; he’d wanted to ask her why she was introducing herself when they’d met the night before, but he obviously couldn’t do that right now. The woman smiles at him, removing her hand.

“I wanted to thank you again, for keeping those children safe.” She says, eyes kind.

Immediately, he feels guilt. He hasn’t truly kept them safe – they still saw awful things that night.

“And nothing that happened in that house is your fault, we won’t blame you. Well, myself and Genta-kun’s parents won’t – I don’t know about Mitsuhiko-kun’s family, I’ve never met them before. But if Mitsuhiko-kun is anything like Genta-kun and Ayumi, then I know that he is probably very stubborn. There was nothing you could do to stop those children from going into that house, Shinichi-kun, and I’m just thankful that they had someone responsible there with them.”

Calling Shinichi responsible is really quite a stretch in his opinion.

“Anyway,” the woman says cheerily, hand on Ayumi-chan’s head “ _we’re_ going to get some lunch. You two look like you need to talk. We’ll stop by a stationary store on the way back, get you something to communicate with.”

She smiles, steering her daughter out of the room. Ayumi-chan whispers something encouraging in Conan’s ear as she passes by.

Conan waits until the door’s closed before he comes forward to sit at the bed. He’s not looking at Shinichi.

They sit in silence like that for a while, just breathing and thinking. Shinichi has the odd feeling that something like this has happened before. But it had been worse that time, he’d almost started crying, he’s sure of it.

Conan breaks the silence, and Shinichi realises that he broke the silence last time too.

“I’m sorry.”

He’s looking up at him now, teary eyed, face full of regret.

He doesn’t have to say what he’s sorry about; they both know it. It’s obvious. He’s sorry because of how he treated Shinichi, because of everything he said to him.

And Shinichi just smiles at him.

“It’s alright.” He says, shifting over to gather the child in his arms. Conan sags against him, burying himself deeper into the hug.

_And it hurts_

_His throat stings_

“I _knew_ you would say that.” He chokes out, fingers digging painfully into Shinichi’s arms.

“It’s the truth.”

Conan pushes himself back, fingers still gripping at Shinichi’s arms, and looks him in the eyes.

“No. it’s not. It’s not the truth, not for me. Maybe you’re fine with saying that and being done with it, but I’m not. I _hurt you_ Shinichi-niichan! I hurt you and it’s not okay.”

His whole body shakes with a withheld sob but he doesn’t look away, refuses to look away. He just sits there, miserable, holding Shinichi’s gaze.

“And I know what you’re going to say to that, even if you _shouldn’t_ be talking. I _know_ you Shinichi-niichan. You’re going to say that you forgive me.

“But I can’t let you say that until I’m done apologising. I can’t let you say that at all, to be honest, because I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Shinichi nods his head, to show that he understands, and Conan takes a shuddering breath, preparing for what he has to say.

He breathes in deeply for a couple of seconds.

“I’m sorry for how awful I’ve been being, for everything I’ve said to you. I said you were mean, that day, back at the hospital, and I said that the old you was nicer. That was a lie. I was just angry, I’ve been very angry lately, and I’ve been using that anger to deal with all my problems. I’ve learnt, though, that anger is probably the worst way to deal with things like that.

“I’m not sorry about the old lady from that house – disturbed, maybe, that I attacked her like that – but not sorry. She was going to kill you, so I’m not sorry about that. But I hurt you too, and I _am_ sorry about that.”

Conan shifts nervously, swallowing.

“I called you an imposter the other day…that was…bad. I guess I was…just…trying to see you as someone else, because it hurt too much – being mean to you. And if I told myself that you were someone else, then maybe it would be easier. That was probably the stupidest thing I’ve done in my entire life…and I’ve done a lot of stupid things.

“You almost died yesterday. I realised, when I saw that woman, and the knife…that you could die…and that you could die thinking I hated you. And maybe it wouldn’t be my fault in that exact situation, if you died, but I’d still blame myself. Maybe I just wouldn’t be fast enough, or brave enough, or maybe I would have just sat down in the grass for too long. I’d find a way to blame myself, even if it wasn’t my fault…

“So you’re not allowed to die, okay? And if you forget again, that’s fine. Because at least you won’t be dead.”

“Okay, I won’t die.” Shinichi croaks out.

“ _What did I tell you about talking_.” Conan chokes out in a laugh, hiding himself in Shinichi’s arms again.

They’re still hugging when Ayumi-chan and Yoshida-san come back.

* * *

“Conan was right,” Genta declares “you _are_ the princess.”

Shinichi forces back a chuckle, reaching past Conan (who is curled up against him, sleeping) to grab the notepad and pen Yoshida-san had bought for him. Genta looks confused as he writes but Mitsuhiko quickly tells him that Shinichi probably isn’t allowed to talk because of his injury. He looks ready to tell Shinichi off if he even thinks of talking.

It’s surprising how quickly the children have taken to him.

_Not really, though, there are few things that can bring people together more efficiently than surviving a crazy lady in a ‘haunted house’_

‘Maybe so, but I’m not the one that got knocked out. I got stabbed in the throat and managed to stay awake long enough to call the police, an ambulance, and all of your parents.’ The notepad reads when he finishes, holding it up for the two boys to read.

“Well…well…uuh…”

“We’re glad you’re okay Shinichi-niichan!” Mitsuhiko pipes up.

‘And I’m glad that you two are okay as well.’ Shinichi writes, smiling at the two children.

That seems to satisfy Mitsuhiko. He beams at Shinichi and sits down in a chair near the foot of the bed. Genta is less satisfied though, fumbling with his hands, a look of worry on his face.

Shinichi only just manages to stop himself from talking. Instead he cocks his head to the side in question, hoping that Genta understands what it means.

But he just looks on in confusion and Shinichi quickly finds himself writing in the notepad again.

‘What is it?’ He writes.

“Uuh…well…Shinichi-niichan…I was wondering…are you really okay?”

Genta looks serious, something Shinichi’s never properly seen before. Maybe the boy had been serious back at the mansion, when they heard Mitsuhiko scream, but Shinichi had been far too gone to notice, far too focused on the problem at hand. It’s surprising to say the least.

Shinichi isn’t okay, hasn’t been okay for a long time. But that isn’t something he wants to discuss with a child.

He nods, it’s a lie.

“Are you sure? You looked like you were in a lot of pain back then. Remember. When you fell down in the foyer.”

_Oh_

_Of course_

_That makes more sense_

Genta isn’t talking about Shinichi’s mental health.

He’s talking about Shinichi’s _physical_ health.

And he looks so earnest about it, so concerned. Apparently, Shinichi’s not the only one to find it strange – Mitsuhiko has an odd look on his face as well.

Genta’s right, he _was_ in a lot of pain. It had been hard to breath and his lungs had stung with the strain. In fact, now that he thinks about it, it only seemed to happen when he was running.

It’s strange.

Shinichi just smiles at Genta, and he doesn’t look convinced, but he seems to know to leave the subject alone.

He’s quick to forget about it, already fighting with Mitsuhiko over the chair.

Shinichi sighs, hand idle in Conan’s hair.

* * *

Ran comes by later the next day, in the evening, having found out about it from Conan. She has a frown on her face when she meets him outside of the hospital.

“You can’t seem to catch a break, can you, Shinichi.” She sighs.

Shinichi shrugs at that, hands in the pockets of his coat. He gives her smile, which she returns warily.

“You here to escort me home?” He asks, wincing a little at the pain.

“Yeah, and to make sure you don’t talk too much, detective idiot.” She glares at him disapprovingly.

He doesn’t really contribute much to the conversation for the rest of the walk home but Ran fills the silence well. She starts off with a great big lecture on his health and how he should be looking out for himself more, telling him that it isn’t _good_ for someone to be in the hospital so often. And she carries on with that for a while. But then, eventually, she runs out of things to say on that topic – instead opting to complain about her dad’s incompetence. Shinichi understands that, he thinks that the man may even be worse than _his_ parents.

And then, after a while, she starts talking about a case he received the other day.

“And all the words were cut out of magazines and newspapers, it was very strange. The letter said ‘on the night of the next full moon, the shadows will begin to disappear once more on Tsukikage island. Please investigate, Asou Keiji’, so dad and I are going to visit that island in golden week – that’s when the full moon is.”

It sounds very suspicious to Shinichi but Ran sounds like she’s looking forward to it.

“Hey, why don’t you and Conan-kun come?” She says, smiling brightly.

Shinichi makes a confused sound and Ran looks away. She looks concerned, maybe a little sad.

“It’s just…” she starts “…bad things have been happening around you lately. I thought it might be good for you to have some time to relax.”

He finds himself agreeing; it _does_ sound relaxing – a small island far away from the busyness of Tokyo. And, as much as Shinichi enjoys his detective work, he finds that a break would be nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, uh, It's the Moonlight Sonata case next chapter, and I've decided to add a character that doesn't appear in that case in the manga to it because this is an au and I can do what I want. You can probably guess who that character is, I've been waiting to introduce them for the entirety of this fic. They were originally gonna be introduced (I mean more like properly introduced, because they've been mentioned several times) about ten chapters down the line but I'm impatient.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conan is up for murder, Shinichi is, decidedly, not. He doesn't get a vote, though, because he's not allowed to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much fun writing this chapter!!

“And then Sonoko kissed me on the cheek and we said goodbye! It was really great Shinichi!” Ran squeals. Shinichi’s honestly surprised that she hasn’t talked about any of their dates before.

“Thank you Shinichi, for saying what you did at the hospital, really, thank you.”

Shinichi leans further over the side of the boat, looking down at the calm waters.

“You’re welcome.”

“ _Shinichi!_ ”

And the look of horror, of annoyance, on Ran’s face is sudden. She rears back, eyes narrowed, hands clenching the railing in anger.

“What?” He asks, blinking.

“You shouldn’t be talking!”

“Huh? It’s fine, though. It doesn’t hurt as much anymore, the doctor said I’m allowed to talk as long as I don’t overdo it.”

“Still…” Ran mutters, staring down over the railing sadly.

“Ran-nēchan’s just scared that you’ll get worse by talking. She’s probably right, the doctor said not to overdo it, so don’t talk unless you have to.” Conan says, frowning up at Shinichi grumpily.

Shinichi slouches down, propping his head up with his hands.

“You guys are just tired of my voice.” He huffs, pointedly glaring at Ran before switching his gaze back down to Conan.

“Uh huh.” Ran sighs, turning away.

“Of course.” Conan drones, sarcasm heavy in his voice.

There’s an accepted silence throughout the group, a mutual understanding that if they’re only going to end up arguing then they shouldn’t be talking at all. Or maybe they’ve just come to the conclusion that if they don’t talk then Shinichi won’t talk either.

It’s probably the last option.

The wind blows over them gustily, sounding like an old man sighing.

Wait.

No.

That was actually an old man sighing.

“I still don’t get why we have to bring the Kudou brat.” Mouri grumbles, arms crossed, eyes narrowed in Shinichi’s direction.

“ _Dad!_ ” Ran snaps angrily.

“I’m just saying! It was bad enough when we had to take care of the regular sized brat, but now we have to take care of him _too_?”

“Dad! Shinichi got _stabbed_! He’s not allowed to talk! Don’t you even feel a little bit bad for him? He needs to do some relaxing, and this island’s the perfect place for that!”

Shinichi’s surprised to see Mouri’s face softening. The man quickly turns away in a huff, though, determined to show no weakness in front of the enemy.

“Ah, the island’s coming up!” Conan says.

And true to his word, it is.

Now, when Ran had told him that they were visiting a nice little island, he had been expecting a sunny, beachy place, with plenty of sand and an array of brightly coloured shops. Not, well, whatever this was.

“Does that look like a relaxing island to you?” Mouri scowls.

* * *

Finally, the ship docks. It lines up at the side of an old pier that looks like it’s had better days.

“Really, if I had known it was going to be so misty I wouldn’t have invited you, Shinichi.” Ran tells Shinichi, she looks as if she’s been forced to swallow a lemon whole.

“It’s fine R―”

Shinichi never gets to the end of that sentence (which is good, because Ran would have gotten mad at him for talking…and Conan would have probably kicked him in the shin, the little ankle-biter).

There’s a great, resounding splash. It’s loud, and something definitely fell in the ocean – there’s a flood of water pouring over the boat and drenching everyone. Shinichi quickly runs over to look over the side of the boat, slipping on the wet surface, only just managing to catch himself on the railing. Ran skids to a stop next to him.

There’s someone there, someone struggling.

“Isn’t that..” Ran whispers, stunned. Shinichi doesn’t hear the rest of her sentence, as he takes off, jumping over the boat to the pier, and then over the pier. He hears a loud, wet noise as he hits the water. It sounds muffled to his ears from under the water, but he quickly resurfaces.

He can see why Ran was so shocked; the man is probably the flashiest person Shinichi has ever seen, with a bright white suit, monocle, and top hat (which is actually floating near Shinichi).

He seems to be struggling with the cape that’s hanging down his back, tugging at it, trying to free it from something.

Shinichi swims over, catches the man’s arm in a tight grip with both hands. The man (and, really, he’s more of a boy; Shinichi’s age) looks at him in surprise, hands stilling on his cape.

“Do you need help?” Shinichi asks in concern.

The guy just blinks at him, eyes roaming his face.

“I…uh…Kudou Shinichi?”

He sounds really confused, like he’s never expected to see Shinichi in his life. Which, in this situation, would make sense. Most people wouldn’t expect to meet a famous detective after falling from a pier (or wherever he fell from, the amount of water that fell down on top of everyone was to much for the man to have fallen from the pier. He must have fallen from higher up, which, Shinichi thinks, is very strange) at such a remote island.

Shinichi nods.

The man swallows nervously.

“No harsh feelings about the twitter thing?” He grins, it’s crooked, terrified.

Everyone seems to be mentioning twitter lately, and Shinichi _really_ wonders what he was getting up to before the amnesia sometimes.

“Uh…no?”

The man brightens up at that, smiling widely at Shinichi.

“Cool, cool.” He says, and Shinichi really wishes they could skip to introductions – it’s getting tiring calling him ‘the man’ “My cape’s kinda stuck on something.” He gestures down to it.

“Yeah, I thought as much.” Shinichi replies, holding his breath, already ducking beneath the water to look at whatever’s trapping it. His eyes and throat sting, water washing over them.

His fingers brush over the man’s ankle and he hears a terrified squeaking sound.

“That was you right? Not a fish?” Shinichi hears from above him.

He doesn’t answer, instead tearing the cape away from where it’s trapped. He hopes the man doesn’t mind the tear. Quickly, he surfaces, gasping for air, grabbing onto the front of the man’s suit. He feels the man’s arms circle behind him.

“So…uhh…looks like I fell for you.” He chirps, beaming down at Shinichi. And it’s such an unoriginal pick-up line.

“Yeah, yeah, save it for when we’re back on dry land.” Shinichi rolls his eyes, a smile tugging at his lips.

They make it back to the pier, Ran pulling Shinichi up. Conan’s laughing hysterically and Shinichi has no idea why. She hesitates with the man but eventually caves, reaching down for his arm, glaring at him.

The man throws his top hat up, having collected it on their way back to the pier, before letting Ran pull him up.

“Thanks.” He smiles, gently placing the hat back on his head.

Ran scowls, shaking her head and getting into a defensive position in front of Shinichi, who stumbles back in surprise.

And Conan really is losing it, Shinichi’s getting concerned.

“No, there’s no way I’m letting you near my best friend, you 40-year-old pervert.” She hisses. Shinichi startles at that, because the man’s not 40, he’s very obviously _their_ age.

The man raises his hands defensively, smiling nervously.

“Ah, well―”

“He’s not 40 Ran.” Shinichi frowns.

“What?”

“He’s our age, see, he’s obviously a teenager.”

“It…it could be a disguise! He’s known for his disguises!”

The man huffs and pulls on his cheek with a gloved hand.

“See, no disguise.” He says in annoyance.

“We’ll see about that!” Mouri declares, rounding on the man, hands in a pinching motion.

“Hey! Wait!” The guy shouts in surprise, but Mouri grabs at his cheeks and _pulls_.

Shinichi winces at the intensity of it.

“Huh? I guess not. Hey, Ran, he really is a teenager!”

“ _No way!_ ”

The man rubs at his red cheeks, scowling at them.

“Yes way.” He huffs, turning to walk down the pier, arms crossed. Shinichi follows after him, Conan at his heels.

“So what’s your name?” He asks.

The man looks at him funnily.

“I’d be arrested by now if I told everyone my name.”

“ _What_! You’re a criminal?!”

“ _You didn’t know?!_ ”

“I just thought you were a really flashy guy in a white suit! You don’t _look_ like a criminal!”

The man huffs, an affronted look on his face.

“Well, since you obviously don’t know who I am, I guess I should probably introduce myself.” The man huffs “I’m Kaitou KID, the magician under the moonlight, the Heisei Lupin, surely you must have heard _one_ of those names!”

“I’ve heard Sonoko talk about a KID-sama before?” He shrugs, frown on his face. Conan splutters, grabbing at Shinichi’s leg to hold himself up.

“Oh well,” KID sighs “it was nice meeting you, even if you don’t know who I am.”

“Was?”

“Well, as soon as this is dry,” he gestures down to his cape “I’ll be taking off.”

“Yeah, I think not.” Conan comments, darting forward to pick up the end of the cape. There’s a tear there, from when Shinichi had wrenched it free of the rocks.

“ _What!_ ” KID shrieks, ripping the cape from Conan’s grasp. He turns to look at Shinichi with disgust.

“How could you?! _I trusted you!_ ”

“What…I…It’s just a cape!”

“It’s not _just_ a cape! It’s a hang glider as well!”

_‘The one with the hang glider, he’s Kaitou KID’_

_‘Kaitou KID?_ _Is he some kind of entertainer? Like a magician? It looks like he’s wearing a top hat’_

“Are you a magician?” Shinichi blurts out, panicking at the flash of memories. KID looks at him in surprise, as does Conan. He hears the sound of Ran and Mouri’s footsteps, likely having realised how far everyone else has moved since the revelation of KID’s age.

“What?”

_‘Is he even allowed to be hang gliding over Tokyo? Does he have a permit? Can you get a permit for that kind of thing?’_

“Do you have a permit? For the hang gliding?” And Shinichi says this so intensely, like it’s important. But it’s not important, not important at all, because it’s obvious – Kaitou KID is a criminal, he doesn’t have a permit. Conan looks up at him, mouth open.

“ _What?_ ”

Shinichi stumbles back a little, bumping into Mouri, who’s standing behind him “I…” He stutters, voice breaking.

His head _hurts_.

“Shit.” He wheezes out, bringing a shaking hand up to his head.

“Oi, brat, you okay?” Mouri asks, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. He looks worried.

“Shinichi?” Ran says, reaching out.

“I’m _fine_!” He yelps, lurching away from Mouri’s grasp. Neither of them look like they’re ready to give up on this, despite Mouri’s annoyance at his general existence.

“Hey,” Conan says loudly, and Shinichi looks down in horror. Conan’s really going to make him face this, isn’t he? Shinichi’s not ready to admit to the memories, or the pain that they’re beginning to bring. But Conan doesn’t do that, he doesn’t push him “leave Shinichi-niichan alone. He’s not ready to tell us yet. What we should _really_ be talking about is the criminal,” Kaitou KID groans at that “and the fact that Shinichi-niichan shouldn’t be talking.”

“Okay, okay, shutting up now.” Shinichi huffs, miming a zipping motion over his mouth. KID tilts his head at them in confusion.

“He got his throat slit like the idiot he is.” Conan states bluntly. KID makes a noise of surprise.

“So, Kaitou KID,” Ran says, dragging her worried gaze from Shinichi “what’re we gonna do with him?”

“We should call the police.” Mouri says, turning to the boat’s captain, who has been standing there in shock the whole time.

“Ah,” the man says, wincing “there’s really only one officer on this island, and he’s not very effective.”

KID sighs in relief, visibly relaxing.

“I vote we tie him to a pyre and set fire to him.” Conan deadpans.

“Seconded!” Ran puts her hand up.

“Don’t _I_ get a say in this!” KID yelps, looking at the two in horror.

“You’re a _criminal_ , you don’t get a vote.” Conan states.

“Well, personally, I don’t think we should set fire to…” Shinichi trails off at the pissed off expressions sent his way “…right, no talking.”

“The brat’s right though, setting fire to him _is_ a bit extreme.”

“I agree,” the boat captain says weakly, looking between the group in terror “I don’t want to get murdered by his fans.”

“He has a point,” Ran mutters “Sonoko might dump me.”

“ _Weak!_ ” Conan hisses.

“I _like_ Sonoko!”

“Wait, wait, you’re dating her? Not the Kudou brat?”

“ _No!_ I would _never_ date Shinichi! No offence, Shinichi.”

“None taken.”

“ _Shinichi!_ ”

And, oh right, he isn’t supposed to be talking.

In the end they decide against setting the famous criminal on fire, much to Conan’s disapproval. Shinichi’s pretty sure he was joking about that anyway, at least he _hopes_ he was joking, he _does_ know that Conan’s a very angry child, so he wouldn’t put it past him.

They, _do_ , however, decide to take a picture with him and post it on Ran’s twitter account with the caption ‘We found Kaitou KID, please come and take him off our hands Nakamori-keibu. He’s _really_ annoying.’. He’s not quite sure why they didn’t just _call_ the man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vote down in the comments, should we tie Kaitou KID to a pyre and set him on fire?  
> Edit: I've just remembered that I wanted to put a link to my tumblr in, so here https://achairwithapandaonit.tumblr.com/


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinichi and KID go on a not-date and somehow miss an entire murder.

They make their way to the town hall, both Shinichi and KID having to wait outside because of the water they’re dripping everywhere. The boat captain has already left, unwilling to be part of their little group, unwilling to be responsible for the possibility of a murdered Kaitou KID.

“So why were you gliding over here anyway?” Shinichi asks, pushing himself up to sit on the stone wall.

“Some asshole snipers were following me in a helicopter.” KID shrugs, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed “What about you? What brings you here?”

“I got stabbed in the throat and Ran decided I needed to do some relaxing.”

“Oh, right, I forgot about that. You probably shouldn’t be talking, I doubt it’s very good for you.”

“No, really, it’s not that bad. Wanna see the scar?” Shinichi protests, tugging the collar of his turtleneck down with a finger. KID catches the hand tugging at the collar and brings it to his lips, kissing it.

“Why, Meitantei,” He starts, wiggling his eyebrows aggressively “I am _honoured_ that you would consider doing such a thing in front of me.”

It takes Shinichi a moment to process what, exactly, KID means here.

“Wh-what! _You idiot!_ I’m not stripping or anything!”

KID snickers, dodging the kick that Shinichi sends his way. Shinichi feels his face burn bright red and considers that maybe Conan was right, maybe they should have set fire to KID.

“Okay, okay,” the thief laughs, reaching into his blazer for something, rummaging around “just let me do one thing okay?”

“One thing?” Shinichi asks suspiciously, eyebrow raised.

“You got to brag about meeting me on twitter, but I haven’t gotten to brag about meeting you yet.” He makes a victorious noise, hand emerging from the blazer with a phone.

“Bragging, you call _that_ bragging? We were asking someone to take you off our hands because you’re too annoying for any of us to bear.”

“Ouch, that’s harsh, Meitantei.” KID winces, walking a few steps back, tilting the phone slightly.

“What are you doing.” Shinichi scowls.

“Just getting the right angle,” He hums “do you think you could strike a pose?”

Shinichi crosses his arms in reply, glaring over at KID.

“Aww, how cute, you’re pouting.”

“Glaring.”

“Pouting.

“ _It’s. A. Glare._ ”

Shinichi honestly doesn’t think he’s ever met someone so infuriating.

KID snaps the picture and then comes back over to lean against the wall, tapping at his phone. Shinichi leans over his shoulder hesitantly.

KID’s typing away beneath the photo ( _which is, unsurprisingly, on twitter. Seriously, why does everyone use twitter_ ).

‘Look at this cute detective I found!! (●⌒ｖ⌒●) Isn’t Shin-ch’

Shinichi lunges at KID, knocking the phone out of his hands. He grabs the thief’s tie before he can bend down to pick up the phone and jerks his head over with it.

“ _Never call me Shin-chan again_.” He spits out, yanking on the tie harshly.

And KID must be some kind of mythological fae-like creature that lives only for the thrill of mischief.

He raises his eyes to hold Shinichi’s gaze and pointedly releases the detective’s hand from the tie, finger by finger, very slowly. He then stoops down to pick up the phone, still maintaining eye contact. Settling back against the wall, he shows Shinichi the phone, full-out smirking.

KID’s finger must have slipped when Shinichi tackled him, because the tweet was posted – the word Shin-chan trailing off into Shin-chaaaa.

He’s still holding eye contact as he types out something more, retweeting his tweet.

‘I was attacked!! (´Д｀。Shin-chan’s such a meanie! It’s okay though, he’ll make an adorable husband ヽ( ´ ∇ ｀ )ノ’

Shinichi’s so shocked by the eye contact and the _smirk_ that he can’t stop him, _even though KID had to look up a website to copy the weird faces from_.

KID hits the retweet button.

It goes viral.

The thief would have gotten away in time if it wasn’t for his stupid cape.

* * *

“Shin-chan! You ruined it even more! It’s going to take _forever_ to fix.” KID cries, holding the end of his cape sullenly.

“I told you not to call me that.” Shinichi replies, eyes narrowing. He jogs on ahead to walk next to Ran instead, she has an odd look on her face.

“So what happened in there?” He asks. He can hear KID saying ‘Shin-chan’ over and over again, loudly, it makes his eye twitch.

“Ah, well, it turns out…Asou Keiji died 12 years ago.”

“12 years ago?”

“Yeah, on a full moon night. He was a famous pianist and, after holding a concert at the community centre, he locked his family and himself in his house and set it on fire. That’s what people are saying, at least.”

Conan tugs on his leg to get his attention. And Shinichi can still hear KID chanting his name.

“The people that went to try and save him said that he’d stabbed his wife and daughter to death. And he played the same song over and over; Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.” The child says.

"It's an awful prank." Mouri comments.

“Hmm, but that’s strange.”

“What’s strange Shinichi?”

“You noticed too?” Conan asks, meeting his gaze.

“Yeah, if it was just a prank they wouldn’t have gone to so much effort. The person sent Mouri-tantei money, and I saw the island’s seal on the letter when you showed me it earlier. Someone on this island must want Mouri-tantei to investigate this Asou Keij―”

“ _OI! You dumb thief! Shut up!_ ” Mouri yells, turning quickly to face KID.

KID stops talking for a second, shocked into silence. Then, and Shinichi knew this was going to happen, he grins.

Because KID loves annoying people, it’s all that he lives for. Shinichi’s not entirely sure _what_ KID is but he’s certainly not human.

“My sincerest apologies, Mouri-san,” And there is nothing sincere about it at all, not in his voice, not in his smile, and certainly not in his mocking bow. This guy is _really_ pissing Shinichi off “I was unaware of how much I was bothering you.”

“But, you know, this is all Shin-chan’s fault. If Shin-chan had just answered me then I would’ve stopped.”

“That does it.” Shinichi growls, marching towards the thief in anger.

“Are you sure you should be talking, Meitantei?” KID smirks, raising an eyebrow.

“Yes.” Shinichi says, ripping the top hat and monocle off of the thief’s head.

KID’s eyes widen, hands reaching out for the hat.

But Shinichi’s quicker, he spends all his free time chasing criminals after all. He takes off running, hat squished against his chest, monocle grasped in his right hand.

KID makes a frustrated noise, shouting something about not wearing a disguise, and sprints after him.

Shinichi doesn’t stop running until he makes it back to the pier. He throws the hat and monocle over the side hurriedly, bending down to lean on his knees, gasping in breath.

He makes a pained noise, grasping at his chest. It burns, just like in that mansion with the detective boys, Shinichi’s starting to think it’s something to do with running.

He looks up just in time to get tackled over the side of the pier by KID.

* * *

KID manages to save the hat, but the monocle’s so tiny that he doesn’t manage to find it. That isn’t the real reason though, the real reason that KID can’t find his monocle is that it’s in Shinichi’s pocket. Shinichi’s starting to understand why KID loves getting under his skin so much.

By the time they get back to the place where they departed from the Mouris and Conan, in front of a small clinic, everyone is gone.

“They must’ve gotten bored waiting for us.” KID comments, squeezing water out of his cape.

“I think Ran just doesn’t want me to get involved in investigations, I _am_ meant to be relaxing.”

Shinichi dumps his soaking wet backpack on the ground and then shrugs out of his coat, shaking it in a vain attempt to get it dry. He gives up after a minute, folding it up on top of his backpack.

“You call running away from infamous phantom thieves relaxing?”

Shinichi shrugs.

“Better than getter stabbed because some kids wanted to go ghost hunting.”

“Fair point.”

“Ah!”

They look over to see a woman come running out of the clinic. She has her hair up in a ponytail and is wearing a baggy turtleneck and skirt, white lab coat thrown over the top.

“You were with Mouri-san and those guys earlier, right?”

Shinichi nods and the woman visibly relaxes.

“They asked if I could distract you for a while, something about your health? I’m not really sure where Kaitou KID factors into any of this.”

Shinichi and KID exchange glances.

“It’s complicated.” They say at the same time.

“I’m Narumi Asai.” The woman says after a moment of deliberation, smiling brightly at them.

“Kudou Shinichi.

“Kaitou KID.”

“Yes, I know who you are. _Everyone_ knows who you are.”

“Everyone but Shin-chan.”

Shinichi elbows him.

They end up sitting inside Narumi-san’s living room, drinking tea together. Apparently she lives on the floor above the clinic; there weren’t ever that many patients on the small island so the bottom floor was enough, and she’s prepared for emergencies this way. It’s only a temporary house for whenever she’s over at the island as she usually lives in Tokyo.

She’d given them some clothes to change into, explaining that her brother’s clothes often ended up in her suitcase by accident, and set theirs for a round in the tumble drier.

KID looked extremely uncomfortable without his hat on.

“That’s quite an incredible disguise, KID-san, you look just like Kudou-san!” Narumi-san chirps, settling down into a comfy-looking chair with her cup of tea.

“A-ah…right.” KID twitches from next to Shinichi on the sofa, hands clenched tightly around his own cup. He casts a terrified look towards the detective.

And Shinichi suddenly realises that KID’s not wearing a disguise, that he hasn’t been wearing a disguise for the entire two hours that they’ve known each other. So this is KID’s real face, and KID’s real face looks just like Shinichi’s.

He briefly wonders if they’re related. He hopes they’re not, what with KID’s flirting and all.

That would be awkward.

He determinedly doesn’t think about how much he’s been enjoying the flirting, despite how outrageously embarrassing he finds it.

They spend about two hours talking, the conversation slowly becoming less awkward. And, of course, KID has to ruin the nice, calming atmosphere that they’ve built up.

“Are you going through with the surgery, Narumi-san?” he asks cheerily, shuffling through a deck of cards.

“Huh?” She asks in confusion, head tilted to the side.

“You’re trans, right. Are you going through with the surgery?”

“ _You idiot!_ ” Shinichi hisses, elbowing KID in the side “ _You can’t just ask someone that!_ ”

“I’m just curious.” KID whines, leaning obnoxiously into Shinichi’s personal space.

“I noticed it right away, I _have_ disguised as women before, after all. I’ve been wondering about it the whole time.”

“You still can’t _say_ that! It’s personal! And very _rude_!”

Shinichi knows that KID doesn’t mean anything by it – he hasn’t known KID for very long, but KID doesn’t seem like the type of person to care about something like that. But KID also seems to easily forget about social boundaries, to ask personal questions when they don’t concern him.

“Narumi-san doesn’t mind, do you Narumi-san?”

But Narumi-san _does_ mind, she _obviously_ minds, with her shocked, horrified face, and shaking hands. She swallows uncomfortably and stands up quickly.

“I have to go. There’s this wake, over at the community centre. I…” She trails off, looking out the window awkwardly. But, then, suddenly, she’s lively again, if a bit skittish, grabbing the cups from the table and escaping through the archway to the kitchen, dumping them into the sink.

“Your clothes should be dry by now,” She says, opening the door to another room “you can leave the one’s you’ve borrowed in the hamper over there.”

And then she shuts the door hurriedly.

“Well done.” Shinichi glares.

KID groans, burying his head in his hands.

“Sorry, you were right.” He mumbles pitifully. Shinichi feels a tiny bit bad for him, he really _does_ seem to regret it, so he decides to allow him to wear some of his clothes. That way KID won’t stand out so much.

The white suit is rather flashy.

They say goodbye to Narumi-san at the door, backpack slung over a shoulder Shinichi's shoulder, coat over the same arm. Narumi-san has changed into a black turtleneck dress, blue broach clipped onto the collar. She’s very quick to get away and it makes them both feel even worse about it.

“So…what now?” KID asks, tugging at the turtleneck Shinichi had given him. Everyone seems to be wearing turtlenecks today, even Ran and Conan. Shinichi thinks it’s so he doesn’t feel alone. Because he’s only brought turtlenecks, they’re the only thing that will cover up the scar.

It’s around five in the evening now, they’d arrived at one, and the sky’s starting to darken.

“I’m not really sure.” Shinichi frowns, looking around them in hopes that the Mouris and Conan will just magically turn up.

They don’t turn up.

It’s even more stressful than getting stabbed in the neck, Shinichi thinks in annoyance.

Speaking of being stabbed in the neck, his throat’s feeling a little sore. Maybe everyone was right about the not talking thing.

“Are you hungry?” KID asks suddenly, head tilted to the side.

“A bit.” Shinichi admits.

“Alright, let’s find somewhere to eat! No… _finny things_ though.”

“Finny…things?”

“Yeah, you know, those ugly little freaks with the weird freaky eyes that live in the ocean.”

“Fish?”

KID flinches at the word.

“You’re scared of them, aren’t you?”

“No!” It’s very unconvincing, the way he says it.

It must be very hard, being scared of fish when you live in _Japan_ of all places.

* * *

Shinichi finds himself paying for both their meals as KID apparently lost his wallet during one of their falls into the ocean. The ramen restaurant is small and barren, no other customers whatsoever, and the owner keeps glancing over at their table with an overjoyed grin – there’s probably not much business to make out of such a small island.

KID’s quiet for the first time all day, humming contently as he slurps at his noodles.

Shinichi feels himself blushing. The thief’s kind of…cute? At least, when he’s not doing everything in his power to piss Shinichi off, he is.

He pouts around the fork.

It’s not fair, criminals shouldn’t be cute.

“Is there something on my face?” KID asks, noticing Shinichi’s stare.

Shinichi rears back, face burning intensely, eyes wide. He bangs his elbow on the table.

“ _No!_ ” he yelps, voice cracking.

“Okaaaaay…” KID comments, eyebrow raised, fork half-way to his mouth. He’s giving Shinichi a concerned look.

Dinner passes without much more incident. Although, KID does pull out his phone to snap another picture of Shinichi, likely to put up on twitter with an annoying comment. He winces when he turns the phone on, muttering something about missed calls.

The restaurant’s owner thanks them profusely as they leave.

“Come on, come on!” KID yells, grabbing Shinichi’s hand as soon as they’re out the door and taking off running.

He’s grinning.

“What is it?” Shinichi shouts.

“I asked my twitter followers for fun things to do when you’re stuck on a remote island with a cute detective!”

And KID’s laughing so cheerfully, without a care in the world, as if Shinichi doesn’t know exactly what he looks like. It’s wonderful, the thief’s happiness intoxicating like a drug.

Shinichi finds himself smiling, being dragged along by this _insane_ criminal.

Everything’s been so bad recently and this feels like a heavy weight being lifted off of his chest, even if the running’s making it hurt.

They end up at an inn at half ten, still having not having found the rest of their group. Maybe the others ran into a murder, he thinks as he watches the thief from across the room.

He's playing with a dove and Shinichi has no idea where he was hiding it. There was the chance that it had been in a hidden pocket in the suit, or under the hat, but KID had changed clothes ages ago, and Shinichi had held the hat earlier.

It was a fun day nevertheless and Shinichi finds himself glad to have met KID, even if he is obnoxiously annoying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on my tumblr: https://achairwithapandaonit.tumblr.com/  
> I literally don't talk to anyone there and I'm too terrified of people to start messaging anyone. Benefits of talking to me include hearing about all my Detective Conan au's and enjoying my wonderful presence. Drawbacks of talking to me are never getting me to shut up about my au's and my awful sense of humour.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinichi refuses to accept that magic exists

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, I was having a bit of writer's block. In other news, I've changed a lot of my plans for this because I was getting a little bored. So say hello to some magic I guess. There are terrible terrible, no good, very bad things coming up after this chapter and, uh, yeah, I'm sorry. Turns out Shinichi's not getting a break.

“Meitantei.”

Something shakes his shoulder.

“Mhrrg…” Shinichi groans, rolling over and burying his face in a pillow.

“ _O-Oi!_ Meitantei! Wake up.”

He slaps at the hand on his shoulder in irritation.

“If you don’t wake up I’m going to post this video of you sleeping on twitter.”

Shinichi sits up, cocooned in his blanket, and glowers at KID. The thief raises an eyebrow at him, pointedly wiggling his phone. His arms are crossed and he looks a little annoyed. Shinichi’s annoyed too; anyone would be annoyed if they were woken up at such an ungodly hour, whatever hour it is.

“Fuck you.” Shinichi scowls, rising from the bed to walk across the room.

“Hey! Where are you going?” KID yells as he wrenches a door open.

“Coffee.” is the only answer Shinichi deigns to give him.

“ _You’re still wearing your pyjamas!_ ”

* * *

 

Somehow, and neither of them are entirely sure how, but _somehow_ , KID manages to get Shinichi to change his outfit _and_ have a shower before they depart on the quest for coffee.

“I have to say, Meitantei,” KID sighs dramatically “you’re pretty high maintenance.”

Shinichi grumbles, trudging along behind him.

The weather isn’t very nice today – a thick fog covering the area, cold air blowing harshly down on them. Shinichi’s sure that it’ll be raining later.

He kind of regrets exiting the inn and he can see that KID does too. He’s hiding it well, but Shinichi’s a detective and he’s very good at seeing these things. KID glances warily around them, with hunched shoulders and a tense jaw.

Maybe he can tell too.

Something changed during the night.

_No_

_It wasn’t during the night_

_It was before that_

_Before all that_

_Something changed a long, long time ago_

“Meitantei?”

Shinichi startles from his thoughts at the sound. KID is looking at him worriedly.

“Sorry, I got lost in thought.” Shinichi says sheepishly.

KID nods once, reaching over to grab his hand, eyes still sharp on their surroundings.

It feels wrong, everything around them.

The houses, the shops, the sea.

The lack of people.

It all feels wrong.

And Shinichi can’t quite remember how they got to the inn the night before, can’t quite remember what they did after they left the ramen restaurant. Can’t remember anyone’s faces, can’t remember seeing anyone around them but Narumi-san. Yesterday was great, it was wonderful.

So why is it so hard to recall what happened?

It's the same, with everything he tries to remember. Right back to when he woke up with a year worth of memories left. Time seems to pass quickly, too quickly, events that he knows happened blurry. And with everything he remembers clearly there were only ever a few people around him.

_He’s been having a lot of memory problems lately_

_It’s not so strange_

Except it is.

It’s _really_ strange.

“Hey KID?” Shinichi asks, breathing heavily. KID looks over at him with wide eyes.

“Yes?”

Shinichi swallows, casts a look to the side, his eyes are burning.

“Where are all the people?” He says slowly, the words catching in his throat.

And then, suddenly, there they are – people. As if they were always there.

But they weren’t.

KID’s grip on his hand tightens.

“You saw that too, right Meitantei?” He whispers, crowding in close to Shinichi’s ear. Shinichi gulps.

“We…we must have not been paying close enough attention.” He says shakily “That must be it.” It’s an unconvincing argument and Shinichi knows that – they had both been alert, looking around intently. They had both felt how wrong everything felt.

Shinichi’s not really ready to face whatever this is. He’s a detective, he lives for weird, but this is _too_ weird. Verging on the barrier between reality and fiction.

KID seems to know what Shinichi’s thinking and pulls him along the road, hands still joined. Shinichi takes comfort in that.

It’s a little strange, though.

KID doesn’t seem too shocked from this – scared, yes, but not shocked. Shinichi wonders if, maybe, the thief has had experience in ~~magic~~ whatever this is. He doesn’t have very much time to ponder on it, their walk grounds to a halt in front of an important-looking building. There are police flitting around it, not many, but more than there should be on this island. The boat captain had said there was only one police officer.

And then he sees Megure-keibu. Finally, someone familiar.

Shinichi smiles and squeezes KID’s hand once before letting go.

He shoves his hands into his coat pockets and strides forward. He only makes it a few steps before KID grabs his arm, tugging him to a stop. He’s looking nervously in Megure-keibu’s direction, at the person he’s talking to ( _middle-aged, small moustache, no one he recognises_ ), Shinichi realises.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” KID says.

Shinichi places his hand over KID’s, on his arm, with a frown.

“Why?”

He never gets his answer. The man’s head snaps towards them, his eyes widen, and he starts running. Running towards them.

He looks angry.

The man roars, something about Kaitou KID.

KID lets out a terrified squeaking sound.

“Okay, okay, time to go Meitantei.” KID stumbles over his words in a rush, the hand on Shinichi’s arm tightening. And then he moves.

He moves quickly, dragging Shinichi along behind him. Shinichi stumbles slightly from the shock of it.

“Why are we running?!” He shouts out, glancing behind them worriedly. The man kind of reminds him of a bull. Except he’s not muscled, not built like a pro-wrestler, he’s just really, really angry.

“That’s Nakamori-keibu!”

“You mean the guy we mentioned in that twitter post on Ran’s phone?”

“ _That’s_ the one!” And KID is grinning maniacally, nervousness forgotten. He’s really enjoying this, probably because―

“Why are you dragging into this?! He’ll _steamroll_ me! Just look at how angry he is, I don’t want to be squashed like a bug!

“You’ll get squashed either way!”

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t have gotten squashed if you’d just let me go before you started running! Usually the one running is guilty of _something_! He’d have just went after you and left me alone!”

And this is _really_ not good for Shinichi, not with the weird chest pains he’s been having recently. He feels it start up again.

“We need to stop.” He pants, steps faltering slightly.

“No, just a bit longer. C’mon, into the woods.” KID puts an extra burst of speed into his steps, heading for the woods.

“No, we _really_ need to stop.” They pass the first tree.

“Just a bit longer!”

The pain’s getting worse, a burning sensation spreading out – just like in the mansion. If it weren’t for KID’s hand on his arm he would be on the ground right now.

“ _KID!_ ” Shinichi gasps out, but KID doesn’t seem to notice, he just continues going on and on.

It kind of just…melts away, everything. He stumbles after KID numbly, not entirely aware of what’s happening. The pain spreads further and tears sting at his eyes.

_His bones were melting, he remembers_

_And his body burnt_

_It burnt and burnt and burnt and burnt and then it stopped burning_

_There was someone screaming then, like they were being murdered_

_Shinichi realises that the one screaming was him_

_He was murdered_

Shinichi _collapses_ , his strings cut. He falls onto the ground, surrounded by mud and sticks and grass, arm slipping from KID’s grasp.

He feels pale, drawn out, sick, the burning in his chest made worse by the sudden pounding of his head.

KID turns around, eyes widening, and crouches down over him.

He says something but Shinichi can’t hear him. He breathes in deeply, squeezing his eyes shut.

It doesn’t really work that well though – it feels like breathing in dust. He breaks into a round of coughs, hands coming up over his mouth. There’s a hand rubbing at his back soothingly.

Shinichi has enough energy left to think that this is probably very bad for his throat.

The coughs die down eventually, as does the pain.

Shinichi cautiously opens his eyes, shakily planting his hands down on the ground, he breathes in deeply. He’s leaning heavily on someone, KID probably, head brushing against their chest. Their hands are gripping at his shoulders.

“KID.”

Shinichi turns his head to look at Nakamori-keibu, hovering worriedly over him. KID doesn’t answer though, he just sits there, hands on Shinichi’s shoulders. And then Shinichi realises – the man hadn’t said ‘KID’.

He’d said ‘kid’.

“Yeah?” Shinichi croaks out, shifting slightly.

Nakamori-keibu’s eyebrows furrow and Shinichi feels him lifting his hand. He looks down.

It’s red. There’s something red on it. Blood.

_Where did that come from?_

“Meitantei,” KID says, voice wobbly “are you okay?”

Shinichi blinks, once, twice.

_Oh_

_The blood is his_

_He coughed it up_

He frowns down at the bloody hand that Nakamori-keibu’s holding, lips pursed.

“uuuuuh…apparently not.”

Nakamori-keibu sighs, letting go of the hand.

Shinichi looks between KID and the man before slowly bringing the hand up to wipe it on his coat. KID splutters at that, moving forward to grab at the hand.

“ _Meitantei!_ That’s a nice coat! You can’t just wipe blood all over it!”

“It’s red, does it really matter.”

“You _animal!_ It looks really expensive as well!”

“Would you rather I wipe my hand on you?”

“ _You wouldn’t dare!_ ”

“Well, I figured that since you’re worthless it wouldn’t matter.”

“You _bastard_! I’m priceless!”

“Yeah, cause you cost nothing.”

KID lets out an inhumane screech and Shinichi takes that as his cue to start running. He picks himself off of the ground quickly and makes a break for it.

“Wait! Kid!” Nakamori-keibu yells, looking at them with wide eyes “What about the whole coughing up blood thing?! Are you sure you should be running!”

Shinichi ignores him, KID doesn’t.

The thing is, though, that Shinichi’s kind of slow. Weighed down by the exhaustion of whatever had just happened and out of practice because of his recent hospital visits. It’s kind of pathetic really, how quickly KID catches up with him.

Shinichi’s delivered safely back out of the woods in KID’s arms. It’s very embarrassing. KID even threatens to throw him off the pier.

* * *

“Really Shinichi,” Ran yawns, slumped down in a chair next to him “you’re such an idiot.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Shinichi mutters.

There had been a murder last night, which was why there were police officers on the island. And since Ran, Conan, and Narumi-sensei had stayed up the night before to make sure the murderer didn’t come back they’d been sleeping all day. No one had wanted to wake them up so they had only just ound out about what had happened. Megure-keibu had called in a helicopter with the intent of getting Shinichi to a hospital but he had refused, if there was anything wrong to be found with him then the doctors would have found it by now. Since they hadn’t, this must be an effect of the poison.

If the poison _does_ exist.

Shinichi still isn’t completely sure about that.

He thinks it exists though.

After getting over the shock of everything Nakamori-keibu had insisted that KID be handcuffed to someone. And KID had insisted that if he had to be handcuffed to someone then it had to be Shinichi.

So now Shinichi finds himself sitting next to an idiot (although KID argued that _he_ was the idiot), handcuffed to him for the foreseeable future. Ran is on his other side, and Conan on his lap.

They’re inside the town hall now, in a small waiting area.

Conan swings his legs back and forth.

“Yeah, Shinichi-niichan, you’re really dumb.” He says, glaring up at him.

“They’re right.” KID huffs, shuffling a deck of cards menacingly. Shinichi’s not entirely sure how someone can do something like that menacingly, but KID manages it perfectly well.

And then, of course, Moonlight Sonata blares from the speakers.

It’s going to be a long night.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> KID promises Shinichi a date...too bad he can't make it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say, before you read this chapter, I'm so so sorry for causing you so much pain. But I love angst and nothing can stop me.

The body of the mayor is bloody and pale, a knife imbedded in its back. It’s draped over the speaker system, eyes wide in terror, mouth gaping open. The blood is dark on the suit but Shinichi can tell, even from the door, that the body was stabbed more than once, fabric fraying around the wounds. This implies that the murderer was angry, very angry. The second movement of Moonlight Sonata continues to pour out of the speakers, something tells him that it’ll be featuring in his nightmares.

Shinichi hears KID let out a stuttering gasp from behind him. He’s a little off-put by how easy it is to slide their handcuffed hands together in a comforting squeeze, how normal it’s become for them. They can’t have held hands that many times in the past two days. It’s strange.

He’s never felt this comfortable with a stranger before, never let one get this close.

“Papa!” the mayor’s daughter screams, desperately. She’s shocked and terrified, and Shinichi feels awful for her, but there’s nothing he can do about it. Megure-keibu holds his arm out in front of her before she can rush in and disrupt the crime scene.

_He thinks of what he remembered earlier, when he was coughing up blood_

_He’d welcomed death then, back at Tropical Land, when the drug had burned through him mercilessly_

_To tell the truth, he’s still getting jitters from the memory_

_And from the blood_

_He wonders if Ran and Conan sounded like this woman when they found him, head caked in blood_

“Call forensics and the coroner here at once!” Megure-keibu shouts out to his fellow officers, eyeing the body with anger. Shinichi understands that, he’s annoyed that the murderer managed to slip by them too.

But the coroner had left for Tokyo earlier in the evening to perform an autopsy on the victim from the previous day – someone called Kawashima.

They’re lucky to have Narumi-san with them. Shinichi has no doubt in her skills as a doctor as she steps into the room without hesitation, rolling up her sleeves to begin the autopsy.

Shinichi moves to enter the room.

“We’re not really going in there are we?” KID squeaks out, staring at the dead body in horror. His eyes flicker over to Shinichi’s face, searching for some kind of a way out.

Shinichi sighs but relents, reaching down with his free hand to usher Conan down the stairs with them.

“I want to go in there.” Conan protests, narrowing his eyes up at Shinichi.

“Sorry, but KID’s being a baby so we can’t go in.”

KID huffs at that, gripping at his hand a little tighter in annoyance.

“I’m not being a baby, I’m being a normal human being. Most people don’t have much experience around dead people. Excuse me for being put off by it. Besides, should children really be allowed near something like that.”

Shinichi thinks back to the haunted mansion, to Ayumi-chan’s terrified face as she stared at the crazed man, holding his hand in terror. To how she tried to comfort him, as if he was the one that needed to be comforted. To how she told him that it’s okay to be afraid. To how she’s probably waking up from a nightmare at this very moment.

No, he decides, children shouldn’t be allowed near things like that.

He presses his hand more insistently on Conan’s shoulder, letting him know that there’s no question about it – they’re going downstairs. It’s not like Shinichi would be much of a help anyway, he doesn’t know anything about the previous victim’s death. Conan’s intelligent and, ever since the incident at the haunted mansion, has been careful with how he acts around Shinichi lately. While he obviously wants to take a look at the body he allows Shinichi to shepherd him downstairs.

Nakamori glances over at them as they round the corner into the waiting room, he’s leaning against the wall, right next to the window on the far side of the room. He quickly diverts his attention back to the phone he’s speaking into though. He has a frown on his face and there’s something in his eyes, something scared.

“I know Aoko, I’ll be back tomorrow. Don’t worry, I’m sure Kaito-kun’s just out with his mum somewhere, maybe she came around to visit. He’s always forgetting to answer your calls, right? This isn’t anything out of the ordinary.” The man glances out of window into the darkness of the night, swallowing nervously.

Shinichi averts his eyes respectfully, ignoring the guilty look KID is sending towards Nakamori-keibu. He pushes Conan over to a chair and sits down in the one next to it, KID taking the seat on the other side of him.

He understands now, someone that Nakamori-keibu knows is missing.

“I know, I know. This is weird, even for him. Just relax, he’ll turn up at our doorstep tomorrow morning looking for breakfast, I guarantee it. Kaito-kun’s like a stray dog, he always turns up for breakfast.”

Okay, the offended sound that KID makes is kind of odd. It can’t be that…there’s no way…

Nakamori-keibu huffs out a laugh at whatever ‘Aoko’ (probably his daughter judging by the familiarity of his tone) says on the other end.

“Yes, that’s true. This one time I caught him setting fire to the fish I’d just bought! The kid’s really scared of them, isn’t he?”

KID scoffs at that, crossing his arms and dragging Shinichi’s handcuffed one with him. Conan looks around Shinichi curiously, eyebrow raised.

Yep, that confirms it. This ‘Kaito-kun’ that Nakamori-keibu seems so fond of is KID. Go figure.

And apparently KID’s parents are fans of puns if the name is anything to go by.

“Anyway, I’ll be back tomorrow, so don’t worry. He’s fine, he’s always fine…look, I need to go. I think someone’s died again, there was a scream. And Kudou Shinichi’s here as well, Megure’s told me that people just seem to drop dead when he’s around. Bye.” And with that the man hangs up, flipping the phone (a flip-phone, slightly old and out-dated) closed and shoving it into his pocket. He makes eye contact with Shinichi, eyebrow tilted questioningly.

“Yeah,” Shinichi breathes out “the mayor’s dead. Stabbed in the back _at least_ twice.”

Nakamori-keibu winces at that, hiding his hands in his pockets, looking back out of the window nonchalantly.

“Hey?” Shinichi calls, not done with the conversation. The man looks back over to him in annoyance.

“You wouldn’t mind telling me about the first murder, would you?” He knows he probably looks desperate, but two people have died now, and Shinichi really wants to get to the bottom of this.

Nakamori-keibu smirks, amused for some reason.

“Of course, Kudou-kun, you’ve been really busy lately after all. What with your date last night.”

Conan bursts out laughing and Shinichi feels his face burn bright red.

“It…it wasn’t a date!” He protests, waving his hands about nervously. KID’s hand gets pulled along with his arm and it really doesn’t help matters. The thief grabs at the closest hand cheerily, his grip warm. He brings their joined hands down, resting them on Shinichi’s thigh. Shinichi jumps at the sudden violation of his personal space – holding hands is one thing, he’s gotten used to the hand holding, but KID’s hand is on top of his thigh and that’s really too intimate an action for Shinichi.

“It was totally a date!” KID beams, looking Shinichi in the eye mischievously.

“It _wasn’t_!” Shinichi splutters, trying, and failing, to tug his hand from KID’s “There’s no way I would date a thief!”

Giving up on detaching his hand, Shinichi turns his head sharply to the side, ready to argue with him head on. This is a bad idea, though, because KID has also turned his head towards him and now their noses are brushing. It’s weird, seeing someone’s face so close up. KID actually has very nice eyes as well. They’re blue, just a bit darker than Shinichi’s.

KID’s thumb brushes over his knuckles and Shinichi feels his breath hitch in his throat.

And those blue eyes dart down quickly, before returning back up. Shinichi knows what KID was looking at.

“Then you’ll date me?” KID says softly, holding his gaze “As myself?”

“You’re still a thief.” Shinichi stutters out.

“Not if I don’t have a criminal record. I promise, okay, I’ll take you out on a date as myself. As soon as we get off this island.”

This is odd, this is very very odd. They’d only known each other for two days, just two days, so it’s odd that KID would trust him enough to offer up a date with himself out of costume. Shinichi supposes that it might be because he knows that KID isn’t wearing a mask and hasn’t told anyone. KID’s eyes are shining brightly, a smile lighting his face, and Shinichi’s never been so taken with a stranger before.

Conan coughs and the moment is broken. Shinichi turns his head to see the boy glaring at KID, arms crossed.

“I’d appreciate it if you stopped trying to seduce my cousin.” He says icily.

KID looks affronted, maybe a little insulted. Shinichi’s not quite sure why.

“I wasn’t _trying_ to seduce your cousin, I was _succeeding_ in seducing your cousin.”

Ah, so that’s why. Shinichi buries his face in his hands.

“Well you shouldn’t be doing that.”

Deep breaths.

“Why not? He’s not dating anyone, I would know.”

It quickly dissolves into an argument, a very loud argument. In a normal setting, if KID was not a thief, this wouldn’t have happened. Heck, they may have even gotten along. But KID is a thief and he’s going after Shinichi. And Shinichi happens to be the person that Conan is closest to. So, of course, to Conan, that would mean that KID is unworthy of a relationship with him. And if they _did_ start dating (not that they ever would, Shinichi would never date a thief, let alone such an annoying one) KID would probably take that as consent to break into their house  – Conan really wouldn’t like that.

“Hey kid,” He looks up, it’s Nakamori-keibu. The man’s looking down at him with amusement and a tinge of sympathy “want me to undo the handcuffs?”

Conan takes that moment to clamber across Shinichi’s lap, a murderous air about him.

Shinichi grimaces, jerking his head away as Conan goes for KID’s face.

“Please.”

* * *

From Nakamori-keibu he’d learnt that the first victim was drowned outside of the community centre before being dragged back inside and placed at the seat of a piano. He had been found because of music playing from a tape recording – the first movement of Moonlight Sonata. It had interrupted a wake, the one that Narumi-san had mentioned the day before. The townsfolk had been convinced that it was a curse, apparently, because Asou Keiji (the letter Mouri-san had received had been addressed from him) had played the Moonlight Sonata as his house burnt down around him, and because the dead man had also used that piano in a concert. Apparently the previous mayor had died after playing the Moonlight Sonata on that same piano as well. Conan had told him that the first few minutes of the tape were blank, giving the murderer time to get away from the scene before the music started playing. All of this meant that the killer was one of the people at the wake.

Conan also mentioned his theory that the killer was a man, because the victim was pretty big and would be hard to carry.

There was also sheet music left at the scene of the crime. It isn’t all that surprising that it was the sheet music to Moonlight Sonata. There was something wrong with the fourth bar, though, Conan said.

Shinichi leans back in the chair, legs crossed, hand at his chin in a thinking pose.

“I still don’t get why _I_ have to be in time out.” KID mutters from the corner of the room, turning his head around to glare at Conan.

“Conan-kun doesn’t deserve to be in time out, Conan-kun deserves a medal. You, however, are the most annoying person I’ve ever had to displeasure of meeting. If you’re going to act like a child, KID, you’ll be treated like one too. You’ll be allowed back over here when you’ve learned to keep your mouth shut for more than five minutes. You can do it, right? Five minutes? It’s easy, just five minutes.” Nakamori-keibu taunts, enjoying the opportunity to mock Kaitou KID.

He knows fully well that KID can’t do five minutes.

Conan smirks, leaning against Shinichi’s shoulder victoriously. He’s asserted his place at the top of the food chain.

KID huffs moodily and turns back to the corner.

It’s a little after that, ten minutes later, that Ran comes back downstairs. She reaches the bottom step and lights up when she sees him, phone in hand. She shoves it into his hands, sitting down in the chair next to him – the one KID had been sitting in before he’d been relocated to the corner (And he’s still at the corner, unable to be quiet for five minutes. He seems to have accepted that he’s not leaving it anytime soon and has sat down, bored, head propped up by his hands).

“There was sheet music found at the first crime scene and a music score written in blood found at this one, I took pictures of them. I think they might be codes, you’re good at those right? Dad thinks they’re dying messages.” She explains, eyes trailing over to KID in confusion.

“He’s in time out.” Nakamori says, noticing her gaze. KID lets out an annoyed sigh at that and Ran nods slightly, blinking in surprise, before looking at Shinichi again.

“You can solve it, right, Shinichi?” She asks earnestly.

Shinichi nods “Yeah, but they’re not dying messages. If the man had enough strength to write this, he would have had enough strength to leave the room. Not to mention that there was sheet music found at the other crime scene, it’s too much of a coincidence that they would both have similar dying messages.” He swipes his thumb across the scene to look at the picture with the sheet music “This was printed as well, not written, how would the victim have known to prepare it? No, these weren’t written by the victims, they were written by the killer.”

Ran gasps but stays quiet, looking at the phone over his shoulder. Conan does the same on his other side, and even Kaitou KID, whose been facing the wall for a while now, turns around. Everyone waits with bated breath for him to solve the code. Shinichi chews on his lip in thought, eyeing the music scores. There are strange symbols by the notes and he’s not quite sure what they are.

“Hey Ran,” He says, using his thumb and pointer finger to zoom in to the symbols “what are these? You know how to play the piano, right? I’ve only ever played the violin.”

“Ah, those are the sharps and flats, they make the note go up and down in pitch. They’re the black keys.”

“Black keys?” Shinichi mutters, narrowing his gaze at the image. He zooms out again to look at the entire image and―

He understands now.

Shinichi opens his mouth and reads out the message that the murderer left.

“Do you understand? You’re next.”

Nakamori-keibu sucks in a breath, looking vaguely uncomfortable. Shinichi thinks he understands why the man deals with Kaitou KID instead of homicide – he needed a break from all the death.

Conan shifts against him, making a sound of realisation.

“It’s piano keys,” He says “in alphabetical order.”

Ran nods, reading over his shoulder. She uses her pointer finger to slide over to the bloody message sitting upstairs “Then that means that this one is…” she takes a moment to read it, mumbling under her breath “…The hellfire’s grudge has been dispelled here.”

She shivers at the message, retracting her hand shakily to put it in her lap.

They sit in silence until everyone else comes back downstairs, even KID. He’s been quiet for much longer than five minutes but he keeps sitting there none the less. When everyone’s in the room again, Shinichi gives his deduction. And when he mentions that the murderer is one of the people currently gathered in the community centre no one takes it well. The suspects are a man called Nishimoto Ken, Narumi-san, Hirata Kazuaki (the mayor’s secretary), Kuroiwa Reiko (the mayor’s daughter), Murasawa Shuuichi (Kuroiwa-san’s fiancé), and Shimizu Masato (a mayoral candidate).

The only people that Shinichi can rule out as the murderer are Narumi-san and, possibly, Kuroiwa-san. Narumi-san, of course, having no motive for the murder. There’s also the point that they’re both women and probably too weak to have moved the first body. Although, seeing as KID had pointed out that Narumi-san was trans the day before, it _is_ possible that Narumi-san would have had the strength to move the body. It would be rude to mention something like that in front of so many people though, especially when Narumi-san was the _one_ person without a motive. And Shinichi would bet money on there being at least one transphobic person in the room. He doesn’t want to put Narumi-san in a situation like that.

_Although, Shinichi feels something off about his deduction_

_He doesn’t like ruling people out so quickly, that’s often when you make mistakes_

He tells them all about the code once they’ve calmed down enough to stop pointing fingers at each other. They don’t take well to that either, deciding that, from the words ‘hellfire’s grudge’, Asou Keiji is still alive. Nishimoto-san is particularly vocal about it, screaming at the top of his lungs that Asou Keiji is alive, and Shinichi suspects, from the man’s terror, that he must know something about the pianist’s death that no one else know. He suspects that, maybe, Asou Keiji wasn’t the one to set fire to the house.

“Asou Keiji isn’t alive. He died two years ago.”

Shinichi jumps, spinning around to look at the old man who’d said this. He’s a police officer, he realises, and Shinichi hadn’t noticed him entering the room.

_It reminds him of the people from earlier_

_Appearing only when he noticed they were missing_

Ran asks him when he got there and the man answers ‘a while ago’. Shinichi narrows his eyes, he didn’t get here a while ago, _someone_ would have noticed.

“And you’re sure that Asou Keiji is dead?” Megure Keibu asks, looking decidedly unimpressed at the man.

“Yep, we found his bones in the ashes of the house, along with his wife and daughter. The dental records checked out as well. Everything was burned, all that was left was some sheet music left in a fireproof case.”

Shinichi’s eyes widen and he feels Conan tense beside him.

“Sheet music?” He asks seriously.

“Maybe there’s something in that sheet music that could help solve the murders.” Megure-keibu mutters. Mouri takes a more direct approach though, taking the old man by the shoulders and shouting at him, trying to find out where the sheet music is.

“The community storeroom.” The man says. Of course, it can’t be that simple. You need a key to get in the storeroom, the man says, and that key is at the station. Megure-keibu yells at the man to go and get it.

And that’s how Shinichi finds himself walking to the station in the dark with the old man and KID.

They stray a little bit behind the old man.

“You noticed too, right?” KID whispers in his ear, eyeing the man suspiciously.

“Yeah,” Shinichi nods “he wasn’t in the room until he said that. A bit like how there weren’t any people around us until we noticed how strange it was, don’t you think?”

“It’s a bit like a dream in that sense, isn’t it.”

“A dream?”

“Yeah, a dream. You know, weird and disjointed. The people didn’t appear until we thought they should be there, the man didn’t appear until his presence was needed.”

“So you think we’re in a dream?” Shinichi asks, grimacing at how unreal it sounds. It’s still possible that they weren’t paying enough attention.

“I don’t know. Maybe? I’ll ask Akako about it when we get off this island.” He doesn’t seem like he wants to ask Akako about it.

“Who’s Akako?”

“A witch. Trust me, she’ll have an answer for this.”

“A witch.” Shinichi repeats, raising an eyebrow.

KID nods.

“Yeah, a witch. She’s tried to kill me on several separate occasions.”

“And you’re going to ask her about this?”

“She’s over the killing thing…I think.”

Shinichi sighs heavily, slightly concerned about his mental health, before walking up to the old man. He can deal with their ( _Shinichi pauses for a moment, not wanting to use the word_ ) magical problems later, right now there’s a murder to solve.

“Hey,” He says, tapping the man on the shoulder (he practically jumps out of his skin at that and Shinichi has to physically restrain himself from rolling his eyes) “Did Asou Keiji really light his house on fire?”

“Yes, according to what the witnesses said.” The man says. And it feels so strange, the man is just like an npc in a game and Shinichi has to force himself not to think of KID’s dream theory.

“Do you remember who they are?” He asks.

“Yeah, let’s see…” The man puts a hand on his head, trying to remember their names “…the previous mayor, Kameyama-san, Kawashima-san, and also…mayor Kuroiwa and Nishimito-san…those four…”

Shinichi blinks, he turns to look at the man “But theyr’e all dead! except for Nishimoto-san.”

“Hmm…yes, you’r right.”

“Do they have a connection?” KID asks, falling into step next to Shinichi.

“Oh yes! They were childhood friends, along with Asou-san.” The man says cheerily.

“Ch-childhood friends?” Shinichi asks.

“Yes, they all went to a piano school together when they were younger. Asou-san and Nishimoto-san got along the best, even after Asou-san became a famous pianist and went overseas to play at concerts.”

Shinichi hums in response, frowning.

The man stops and Shinichi sees a small wooden building up ahead. It doesn’t really look like a station at all but the man pays that no heed, opening the door and turning on the light. He begins searching for the key.

And that takes a long time.

An hour, an entire hour.

“Let’s hurry back to the inspector!” Shinichi snaps, patience worn too thin, as the man holds the key up to the light and gives a happy cheer.

“It’s too late…” Shinichi turns around to see Ran, leaning heavily on the doorframe, out of breath. Conan’s at her feet, looking even worse “…they all got tired of waiting and left. They said they’d check the music sheet tomorrow…”

Shinichi’s eyes widen, he strides over to Ran and grips at her shoulders.

“They let the suspects go home!”

“Y-yes, this is an isolated island, so they can’t get away that easily. And the culprit’s last message is ‘the hellfire’s grudge has been dispelled here’, so there won’t be any more murders.”

But Shinichi knows that’s not true – only the first two movements of Moonlight Sonata have been played, there’s still one left. He snatches the keys out of the man’s hand and makes for the door.

“I’m going to the community centre!” He shouts behind him.

But an arm catches him around the waist before he can make it very far.

“You really shouldn’t be running, Shin-chan.” KID tells him, lips way too close to his ear. Shinichi breathes in, breathes out.

Okay, they’re walking to the community centre, then.

The walk takes them ten minutes, entirely too long for Shinichi’s liking, but there’s nothing he can do about it.

“Hurry up!” Shinichi commands as the old man fumbles with the storeroom’s lock. Conan kicks him in the leg.

“You’re being too demanding.” Conan says as Shinichi looks down in surprise. And he realises that, yes, he _is_ being a bit too demanding of the old man. But the longer they take the more likely it is for another murder to occur.

Shinichi frowns, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Did anyone hear that?” Conan asks, head snapping over to the piano room. Shinichi ignores him, the old man’s finally turned the key. He hears Conan’s footsteps as he runs towards the room, sees KID brush past him to follow.

The door inches open slowly.

There’s a smashing sound from the piano room and Shinichi’s eyes widen.

_Conan!_

But Ran screams and he looks back at the door to see Nishimoto-san’s dead body hanging from a noose. The old man trips and stumbles, falling to the ground in surprise, face pale. And Shinichi hears Conan and KID’s hurried footsteps, it reassures him. They’re okay.

“Officer! Go and call the inspector!” Shinichi orders as Conan comes to a stop next to him. The man stutters out an affirmative noise, stumbling away quickly to find a phone.

There’s a click and Shinichi walks over to the tape recorder that made the noise. It was the sound of it stopping, he’s sure, and the tape reads C-60, meaning that it’s a 60 minute tape, 30 minutes on each side. Which means that Nishimoto-san must have died in the last hour – from (he checks his watch) 10.30 to 11.30.

“There’s a music sheet over here!” Ran calls out, kneeling before the body, eyes on a sheet of paper underneath it. Conan’s quick to join her, reading out the message.

“Will.” He says, frowning.

“Will,” KID mutters, blinking “what does that mean?”

“Maybe it’s about some kind of will.” Ran ventures, eyebrows drawn together, hands picking up the paper. There’s another sheet underneath it “Here! I think this is a will.”

Shinichi crouches down beside them, taking the will (which is coded in the same way all the music sheets have been) from her hands to read it over. It is apparently written by Nishimoto-san, who proclaims in the writing that he was the one behind the murders and that he had killed himself over the anguish of it. This is wrong, though, because if this was a suicide then there would have been a chair, or a stepping stool, or _something_ , behind Nishimoto-san’s body. It goes on to say that he did it to keep their mistake secret – the other people involved in this being Kameyama, who had died two years ago, and Kawashima and Kuroiwa, the two who were killed over the past days. Seeing as all four of them were childhood friends, Shinichi feels safe in saying that Asou Keiji was probably part of this mistake as well. This deduction is made all the more likely by the next paragraph of the will – which says that Asou Seiji taught them the code to the music sheets. Shinichi guesses that what he’s supposed to take from this is that Nishimoto-san broke into the storeroom to get the music sheets (assuming that there was something about this ‘mistake’ on them) and got frantic when he couldn’t find them, killing himself. Shinichi’s not an amateur, though, and he can easily tell that this is a murder from the lack of chair. The line ‘my life ends with the third movement’ probably refers to the tape, which must have played the third movement of Moonlight Sonata before it ended. Shinichi hopes this is the last murder – there _are_ no more movements to it.

When Megure-keibu, Nakamori-keibu, and Mouri arrive, Shinichi tells them all of this, deflecting all of Mouri’s bad comments about his deductive skills easily. It turns out that the old man doesn’t know where he put the music sheets from twelve years ago, as well.

As they’re standing there, wondering who the culprit could be, Conan tugs on his sleeve.

“What is it?” Shinichi asks, blinking down at the boy.

“I saw someone suspicious earlier, in the piano room.” He says. Then his eyes widen momentarily.

“Murasawa-san was on the ground,” He says, face pale “someone had hit him on the head, I forgot about it.”

KID leans onto Shinichi’s shoulder, grinning down at Conan, their earlier distaste of each other forgotten “Don’t worry, Narumi-san’s treating him in the piano room.”

Conan visibly relaxes.

It turns out that Murasawa-san has a concussion and hasn’t regained conscience yet. Narumi-san says that they should probably take him to the clinic, the man’s fiancé, Kuroiwa Reiko-san, is quick to point fingers, though, declaring that Shimizu-san must have done it after being caught in the act of murdering Nishimoto-san.

She doesn’t take well to everyone’s attempts to dispel a theory.

There’s a tuning hammer lying on the floor next to Murasawa-san and Conan stoops to pick it up.

“Don’t touch that! It’s Shuuichi’s!” Kuroiwa-san shrieks, snatching the tuning hammer out of his hands.

“What’s that?” Megure-keibu asks in confusion.

“How should I know?!” The woman snaps, glaring at him “Shuuichi always carries it around with him!”

Shinichi watches as Conan crosses the room over to the piano – obviously he’s on the same thought process as Shinichi.

“Well, call the suspects back here! We’ll question them all over again!” Megure-keibu yells at an officer. Shinichi wanders over to the piano as all the adults leave the room. Ran’s already there, crouched down behind Conan, and he answers that he saw the suspicious figure put their hand beneath the piano earlier when she asks what he’s doing. KID mentions that he saw the same thing, walking over to the group.

Conan fiddles with something underneath the piano and Ran crawls under there to take a look at what he’s doing.

“What’s this? A secret compartment?” She asks as Conan looks down at something on the floor.

He licks his finger.

“Shinichi-niichan!” The boy calls, whirling around to look at Shinichi “This is cocaine!”

Shinichi’s eyes widen and he sees Ran stiffen.

“ _What_? And you _licked_ it?!” He shouts out, falling down to his knees to pull Conan out from under the piano.

“Are you okay?!” Ran shrieks worriedly, attempting to stand up and bumping her head on the piano she’s still sitting under.

“That _can’t_ be good!” KID yells.

“It’s…it’s okay guys, seriously. Police do it all the time to test if something’s cocaine, it only makes the tongue numb. You know this Shinichi-niichan, you’re a detective, why are you so _worried_?”

And Conan should know this by now; that Shinichi’s always going to be worried when it concerns him.

* * *

“Three murder cases have occurred on this island! They all had songs playing nearby and all had coded messages left behind. And all three required considerable strength. The first murder was the drowning of Kawashima-san, where he was then brought into the piano room of the community centre. The second murder was the stabbing of Koroiwa-san in the broadcasting room. The third murder was the hanging of Nishimoto in a community centre storeroom, made to look like a suicide. All acts were done by the _same_ person! A person with a large amount of strength. Narumi-sensei, what was the estimated time of death?”

“It was some time between ten and eleven.” Narumi-san says, looking nervously at Megure-keibu.

“We sent you home from this building at eleven O’clock.” The inspector says, addresses the suspects “So, like the first murder, we don’t have any specific suspects.”

“However, based on the estimated time of death in the second murder and the amount of blank space on the tape, Kuroiwa Reiko-san, and Dr. Asai Narumi have alibis. Which leaves these men, who were in the town hall at the time, with no alibis.”

“Hirata Kazuaki, mayor Kuroiwa’s secretary, Shimizu Masato, mayoral candidate along with Kuroiwa and Kawashima, and Murasawa Shuuichi, now resting in the clinic. We’ve narrowed the suspects to these three.”

He turns back to Narumi-san “Is Murasawa-san still out, Narumi-sensei?” he asks.

“Yes,” She replies “Reiko-san is nursing him, but he’s still unconscious.”

There’s something bothering Shinichi about all this, something important.

“Inspector! We’ve got the pictures from the second murder developed!” An officer calls out, coming forward with a folder.

“Okay, lay them on the table.” The man orders.

Shinichi comes to stand next to Megure-keibu and take a look. He does notice something strange, there’s a light on next to the body in one photo, and no light in another.

“I never got the chance to ask, Kudou-kun,” Megure-keibu says, smiling fondly at him “are you okay? I heard that you had to go to hospital after you solved that murder at Tropical Land.”

“Ah, that.” Shinichi responds, picking a photo up to look more closely “I’m fine, I just got hit on the head a bit, got a bad concussion.”

Obviously, it was more than a bad concussion, but Megure-keibu doesn’t need to know that.

“Oh, that good to hear. Is your attacker in prison then, Kudou-kun? You’re not one to let a criminal get away.”

“Ah, eh…no. I-uh, I didn’t get a good look at them.” Shinichi fumbles, injecting embarrassment into his voice.

Megure-keibu frowns.

“How about these photos then? There’s a light on in one of them – see here, just near the body. But it’s not there in this one.”

“How does that relate to anything Kudou-kun?” Megure-keibu asks, looking at him sceptically.

“I don’t know yet, but it’s definitely strange.”

“Don’t worry about it too much. It was probably a button, it must have been accidentally pressed when the photographs were taken.”

“Shinichi-niisan!” Shinichi turns around at the desperate shout to see Conan, holding out a bunch of music sheets.

“That old man found them, the music sheets from twelve years ago. I read some of it and it turns out that Asou Keiji had a son too! He was away in Tokyo when the house burnt.” Conan says excitedly, handing over the music sheets. He knows that the mystery is very close to being solved.

Shinichi feels sick.

“Son?” He asks.

_It can’t be…_

“Yeah!” Conan chirps “And Kazuaki-san’s the one that’s been using the piano to deal cocaine, he has lots of foreign money in his wallet, and he freaked out when I told him there was white powder on his sleeve. I think _he’s_ the one that hit Murasawa-san over the head; Murasawa-san must have come by to tune the piano and Kazuaki-san got scared that he’d find the hidden compartment! Am I right, Shinichi-niichan?”

Conan looks so proud of himself, acting like a normal child for the first time in a long time. But Shinichi can’t think on that, can only think about the music sheets in his hands.

‘To my son, Seiji…” it reads, and Shinichi stops reading after that.

Because it says son

_A son_

_Just like Conan said_

_And it just_ can’t _be_

_Shinichi doesn’t want it to be her, she doesn’t deserve it_

He feels so very sick as he draws his gaze away from the papers in his hands and over to Narumi-san. She pales at his gaze, stumbling backwards slightly, fumbling with her hands. And then she slips from the room.

Shinichi _hates_ this.

He gets up quickly, letting the papers flutter to the floor as he making a dash for the door. But Ran grabs his arm, halting his movement.

“What are you doing Shinichi!” She screeches, looking at him in shock “You can’t be running! They said you coughed up blood earlier! Why are you trying to run?!”

Shinichi struggles, but her grip is strong; he has to speak, has to get his point across.

“Narumi-san is the culprit! She’s trans, KID pointed it out yesterday, so she has the strength to commit the crimes! Now let me go before she does something we’ll _all_ regret!” Ran lets go in surprise and he runs for the door.

“Wait! What’s the motive?!” KID shouts, running up beside him.

“ _She’s_ Asou Keiji’s son, or she was his son, I guess she’s his second daughter now.  Those three that died, and the man who died two years ago, they murdered Asou Keiji and his family!”

Shinichi runs out of the entrance to the building and makes his way down the road, KID at his side. He can hear everyone else behind him, Ran, Mouri, Conan, Megure-keibu, but that doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters right now is getting to the community centre before Narumi-san does what he thinks she’s going to do.

Sure enough, when they arrive at the community centre, it’s lit bright against the dark night, burning away in a terrifying sight.

“Get water!” Megure-keibu shouts at the officers that have made it to the scene.

“I’m going in!” Shinichi yells, stepping forward.

“No you’re not, kid!” Nakamori-keibu roars, yanking him back by the arm “No one inside that building stands a chance! Look at it, it could fall at any moment!”

Shinichi sees what he means, underneath the flames he can see the wood blackening, and there’s an awful crackling sound emanating from it.

But then Ran says it.

“Where’s Conan?” And it’s cold and sudden and filled with dread. Shinichi feels awful as he looks over at Ran’s white, white face, lit dramatically by the embers.

He scrambles in Nakamori-keibu’s arms, thrashes, but he won’t let go.

“Let me go! Conan could be in there!” He screams desperately, trying to bite the man’s arm, anything to make him let Shinichi go.

“What if he’s not in there!”

“Don’t worry, Shin-chan!” KID shouts, running past them “I’ll get him!”

Shinichi feels himself breath a sigh of relief, sagging in Nakamori-keibu’s arms as the thief rushes into the building, mindless of the flames. Nakamori-keibu drops him, though, and he falls down onto the grass.

The man looks scared, pale.

“He’s KID, he’ll make it out.” Shinichi says reassuringly, and Nakamori-keibu nods, staring at the building stiffly.

There’s a smashing sound and Shinichi looks up.

Conan flies through the air, out of a window, surrounded by glass, and lands in a heap several steps away. He gets up quickly, stumbling back slightly as he turns back around to look at the burning mess. He’s terrified. Shinichi knows what that means – Narumi-san isn’t going to make it out.

He makes his way to Conan and places his hand on his shoulder.

Moonlight Sonata plays from within the fire, a haunting melody. There’s a code in it.

‘Thank you, detective.’

He feels Conan _shiver_ and squeezes the shoulder comfortingly. There’s going to be a lot of damage control, he knows, for both him and Conan.

Because both of them are blaming themselves for Narumi-san.

“KID’s not coming out!” Someone shouts.

Shinichi feels as if his breath’s been punched out of him.

_He’s still inside_

_He’s still inside and he’s not coming out_

“No.” he stutters “No, that can’t be right. He’ll come out, I know I only met him yesterday, but I just _know_ he’ll come out. _He’s KID!_ ”

He looks up at Nakamori-keibu with wide eyes. Because it can’t be true. Because KID can’t still be in there. Because KID would be out by now.

And KID had promised earlier that he’d take Shinichi out on a date as himself. Shinichi’s not quite sure why he’s stuck on that, why he wants that so much, but KID _promised_. With a wide smile and blue eyes just a little darker than Shinichi’s and a hand on his own, thumb rubbing over his knuckles.

Nakamori-keibu is pale as he meets his gaze, shaking his head. He looks sick to his stomach.

“He’s dead, Kudou-kun. Kaitou KID is dead.”

It leaves him feeling cold, numb, like he’s underwater again, just like when they’d first arrived at the island. His eyes _burn_.

He hears Ran let out a sob, she’s never been good with death.

Shinichi breathes in deeply through his nose and exhales out of his mouth. It doesn’t work, though, he can’t calm down. He doesn’t know KID well, only met him yesterday, but this is somehow the most awful he has ever felt.

It’s okay though, because KID said they might be in a dream. And since KID’s had more experience with magic than he does, Shinichi feels that he can trust in his opinion. He just needs to wake up.

_They might not be in a dream though_

_It might be something else_

_And Shinichi might never wake up_

_Because it might be real, all of it, no matter how strange it feels, how wrong_

_It might be real, is probably real_

Shinichi buries his face in Conan’s shoulder so no one can see the tears.

KID’s still dead, even if this is a dream, a charred body inside a burning building.

The haunting melody stutters to a stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry!! He'll come back! There's no way I'd kill KID off before he and Shinichi got round to dating. Not that he isn't dead, cause he's totally dead, he's very very dead. But he's kinda not?? idk? You'll understand when I get round to writing that chapter, there's some very bullshitty magic on the way. And Akako. Cause you can't have magic without Akako.


End file.
